In
het echt progressieve deel van de VS hoopte men dat Trump in zijn
laatste weken als zittend president Julian Assange en Edward Snowden
een pardon zou geven, echter helaas is dat niet gebeurd en het zal
‘ook niet’ gebeuren. Behoorlijk dom trouwens dat men dit geloofde,
immers zowel Snowden als Assange zijn door de reguliere media in de
VS (en de rest van het westen) al jarenlang afgemaakt als verraders en dat op zo’n manier dat je van
hersenspoelen kan spreken……. Hoewel Trump deze media voor het
overgrote deel ‘fake media’ noemt, is het laatste wat hij wil dat zijn
achterban hem als vriend van verraders zal gaan zien…….
Caitlin
Johnstone schreef een kort en bondig artikel over deze zaak en gaat
verder in op de beloften die Trump deed tijdens de verkiezingsstrijd
in 2016, zoals het beëindigen van de (illegale) oorlogen die de VS
destijds voerde (‘getting the troops home’), iets waar bitter weinig
van terecht is gekomen en de VS zou nu zelfs meer troepen in het
buitenland hebben dan voor Trumps aantreden, niet zo vreemd daar
Trump het Pentagon toestemming gaf om naar eigen inzicht meer troepen
in te zetten…… Overigens, ook het aantal bommen dat werd
afgeworpen is nog weer groter dan onder Obama die George W. Bush weer
overtrof (terwijl aan Obama de Nobelprijs voor de Vrede werd toegekend…)….
Over die illegale oorlogen gesproken en zoals je al in de kop kon lezen: Trump heeft gisteren 3 oorlogsmisdadigers, die een levenslange gevangenisstraf moesten uitzitten, pardon gegeven, dus deze vreselijke moordenaars mogen naar huis, terwijl degenen die oorlogsmisdaden aan het licht brachten geen pardon krijgen en Julian Assange zelfs in isolatiefolter gevangenzit…… Mede daarom wil ik nog eens opmerken dat het journaille van de reguliere westerse (massa-) media zich de ogen uit de kop moet schamen dat ze Assange zo hebben gedemoniseerd, NB een gelauwerd collega van hen die uitstekend werk verrichtte in het openbaren van o.a. oorlogsmisdaden door VS militairen begaan, een collega die ze dagelijks zouden moeten ophemelen tezamen met de eis hem onmiddellijk vrij te laten, wat een geteisem!!! (en dat tuig heeft het gore lef om zich onafhankelijk te noemen…..)
Voorts
wijst Caitlin volkomen terecht op het feit dat Obama meer
vluchtelingen deporteerde dan Trump….. Waar Obama wordt gevierd als
groot strijder voor mensenrechten en hij zichzelf flink wat veren in
de vieze oorlogsmisdadige reet stak in het boek dat onlangs werd uitgegeven……. Met de uitgave van zijn boek heeft Obama interviews gegeven in de landen waar het valse flutboek werd uitgebracht, maar
hij wilde niet dat journalisten hem interviewden, nee bekende
schrijvers in die landen kregen deze taak….. Dat laatste was niet
voor niets, immers er zouden nog steeds journalisten kunnen zijn die
hem het vuur aan de schenen zouden hebben gelegd…… Schande dat
die schrijvers akkoord gingen met deze gang van zaken zoals de
Nederlandse broodschrijver en kakzever de luxe Tommy Wieringa, wat
overigens ook geldt voor het programma Nieuwsuur…… (Nieuwsuur van
de zogenaamd onafhankelijke partijen NOS en NTR…..)
After
weeks of speculation and desperate hopes that Donald Trump might be
preparing to pardon
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden
and/or WikiLeaks
founder Julian Assange
before leaving office on January 20th, what the latest round of
presidential pardons has delivered is about as far from that as you
can conceivably imagine.
“In
an audacious pre-Christmas round of pardons, President Trump granted
clemency on Tuesday to two people convicted in the special counsel’s
Russia inquiry, four Blackwater guards convicted in connection with
the killing of Iraqi civilians and three corrupt former Republican
members of Congress,” the New
York Timesreports.
I
probably don’t need to tell my regular readers this, but a Trump
pardon for Assange and Snowden is almost certainly not in the cards.
Trump has done nothing but protect the imperial status quo the entire
time he’s been in office and a pardon for either of those heroic
government transparency advocates would be a deviation from his
established patterns unlike anything he’s ever once demonstrated
while in office. It’s good
to pressure politicians to do the right thing
even when they probably won’t, but it’s a safe bet that he won’t.
Story
coming shortly from @nytmike
and me – Trump pardons or commutes Papadapolous and another Mueller
probe target, four men connected to killing Iraqi civilians and 3
corrupt R congressmen
Trump’s
entire term has revealed that virtually everyone, all across the US
political spectrum, has been wrong about him. And it’s a testament to
the power of media echo chambers that for the most part they remain
just as wrong about him as they were four years ago.
To
this day, even after four years of evidence to the contrary, many on
the left still continue their
frequent claims
that Trump is a uniquely fascistic or Hitler-like president, despite
his having far
fewer deportations
than Obama had. And despite the fact that he will with absolute
certainty leave office on January 20th after losing an election.
All
sides pretended that Trump was a radical deviation from the norm, and
so did Trump, when all he actually did throughout his entire time in
office was protect the status quo just like his predecessors did. As
writer and activist Sam Husseini recently put
it,
“Trump is the opposable thumb of the establishment. He looks
like he’s on the opposite side, but he just helps it grab more.”
Only if you assume that Trump has ever had any real interest in rocking the boat in any meaningful way. He doesn’t. He’s done nothing but protect the status quo throughout his entire term. https://twitter.com/Jeannin55385803/status/1341550885726404608 …
143
47 people are talking about this
After
four years everyone–left, right and center–has been proven wrong
about Trump. He was neither a uniquely evil monster (he was
indisputably not even as bad as Bush), nor a populist hero draining
the swamp and fighting for the common man against the Deep State.
In
actuality Trump’s term has clearly established what he really was
this entire time: he was a US president. Better than some, worse than
others, but also deeply awful all around since he voluntarily served
as the face of the most evil and destructive force on earth, namely
the United States government. He was the same kind of monster as his
predecessors.
Trump
was a US president of fairly average depravity, with a truly massive
overlay of narrative heaped on top of him by partisan media on all
sides. In reality he was pretty much what you’d get if you took any
average American Fox News-watching boomer who yells at Obama on TV,
made him rich, and then made him president.
That’s
what Trump is and has been. Nothing more extraordinary than that. It
is only the effectiveness of echo chambers and the human tendency to
prioritize narrative over factual data which prevents more people
from seeing this.
And
now he is leaving, with his imaginary crimes still held as real and
his actual crimes completely ignored. Humanity will not be able to
create a healthy world until we find a way to transcend
our unhealthy and delusional relationship with mental narrative
which so easily obscures our perspective of what’s really happening.
________________
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Schande!! De video’s die Brasscheck TV meestuurt in haar
nieuwsbrieven worden ‘weggecensureerd’, een teken dat men bang is dat
de waarheid over veel zaken die bijvoorbeeld met het Coronavirus, of oorlogsmisdaden van de VS te
maken hebben, het grote publiek bereiken…… (dat laatste uiteraard in de VS, hoewel gezien WikiLeaks ook de media in andere westerse landen liever geen melding maken van die oorlogsmisdaden, sterker nog: waar die media Julian Assange die e.e.a openbaarde in WikiLeaks voor verrader uit durfden te maken*)
Ja ook Apple doet aan censuur!!
Ook op
dit blog gaat de censuur te keer, zo zijn alle video’s waarop dieren
worden mishandeld verwijderd door Google, dit daar ze niet geschikt voor kinderen
zouden zijn en alleen op YouTube kunnen worden bekeken…….. (alsof kinderen te dom zijn om YouTube te kunnen vinden……) Dat de
psychopathische figuren die zich boer en slachter noemen en die
‘hun’/de dieren mishandelen, middels hun lobbyorganisaties de leugens
over hun doodsindustrie als zouden de dieren een geweldig leven hebben, als lesmateriaal naar scholen sturen, schijnt
men normaal te vinden en nee die informatie wordt niet gecensureerd omdat het gore leugens zijn…….. Nee, ook Google en Facebook vinden blijkbaar dat kinderen te vaak beslissen dat ze
geen vlees meer wensen te eten ‘en dat kan natuurlijk niet…..’
Ook zijn honderden zo niet een paar duizend foto’s en een groot aantal andere video’s verwijderd van dit
blog, o.a. beeldmateriaal uit oorlogsgebied……
De volgende
tekst valt te lezen op de plek waar de video’s horen te staan, samen
met een lullig poppetje:
Hmm. Dat
adres ziet er niet goed uit.
Controleer
of de URL juist is en probeer het opnieuw.
Je kan de URL tot in de eeuwigheid controleren, maar dat veranderd niets aan wat je te zien krijgt, de voorgaande tekst is dan ook een smerige leugen, Brasscheck heeft een HTTPS adres, bovendien laat Google per ongeluk wel eens een video staan, of wanneer er meer dan 1 video wordt meegezonden en Google de tweede vergeet te censureren……
Blijkbaar vindt de Nederlandse overheid het prima als Google video’s van Nederlandse burgers censureert, terwijl onze overheid onmiddellijk op de rem zou moeten trappen, ongelooflijk……..
Waar
gaan we naar toe op deze manier? Een politiestaat, waar je blog (en de rest van je openbaar handelen) alleen met rust wordt gelaten wanneer je je als een rustige en gehoorzame burger gedraagt?? Wat dat betreft is de Coroncrisis een ‘mooie oefening’ voor het moment waarop men het parlement geheel buiten werking stelt……….
Voor meer berichten over censuur, Google, Facebook, Apple, YouTube, mensenrechten, burgerrechten en/of vrijheid van meningsuiting, klik op het betreffende label, direct onder dit bericht. Hetzelfde geldt voor berichten over de intensieve martelveehouderij, illegale oorlogen en WikiLeaks.
Van de week plaatste Carlos Latuff onderstaand Twitterbericht en eigenlijk is daarmee alles wel gezegd, maar voor de onwetenden toch nog het volgende: te gek voor woorden dat Julian Assange nog steeds vastzit en waarvoor? Voor het uitstekend uitvoeren van zijn werk als gelauwerd onderzoeksjournalist!! Zijn ‘collega’s van de reguliere media moeten zich kapotschamen dat ze Assange zo hebben laten vallen, dit zijn dan ook geen journalisten, maar lakeien van het inhumane neoliberalisme en grootlobbyisten voor de illegale oorlogen die de grootste terreurentiteit ter wereld, de VS op een aantal plaatsen over de wereld, maar vooral in het Midden-Oosten en Afrika voert en dat met haar oorlogshond de NAVO aan de lijn, de NAVO is dan ook niets anders dan een terreurorganisatie onder militair bevel van de VS……..
Mooi dat Carlos Latuff nog eens de aandacht vestigt op Julian Assange die al zo godvergeten lang vastzit (daar hij tijdens zijn verblijf in de ambassade van Ecuador in feite ook gevangen zat) en dan zit hij nu ook nog eens in isolatie, wat men aanduidt als isolatiefolter, meer dan barbaars en een schunnige misdaad tegen de menselijkheid, bovendien een zeer brutale schending van de mensenrechten!!
Assange kan niet rekenen op onafhankelijke rechtspraak in Groot-Brittannië, of waar dan ook in het westen, daar hij door de reguliere media in die landen en dus door zijn collega’s al lang is veroordeeld voor verraad (‘trial by ordeal’), terwijl hij volkomen terecht oorlogsmisdaden aan het licht bracht en dat o.a. aangeleverd door klokkenluider Chelsea Manning, die alleen daarom al beschermd en gelauwerd had moeten worden, i.p.v gevangen te zijn gezet!!
Jonathan
Cook heeft een flink artikel geschreven op Information Clearing House,
waarin hij betoogt dat we de planeet moeten redden (voor zover dat
nog mogelijk is*) en dat de weg daartoe bestaat uit het stoppen van
de westerse oorlogsmachine, die vooral draait om de inhumane neoliberale
kapitalistische status quo te handhaven.
Het
kapitalisme houdt geen rekening met de gevolgen van het plunderen
van de planeet plus het vervuilen van lucht, water, bodem en
ondergrond door productieprocessen en om deze processen draaiende
te houden. De kosten die nu al worden gemaakt door de
klimaatverandering, zijn niet meer in een getal te vatten, je moet denken aan
‘duizenden miljarden’, terwijl de mensenlevens die door dit proces
verloren zijn gegaan al helemaal niet in geld zijn uit te
drukken…… (het kapitalisme heeft daar totaal geen moeite mee….) Zoals Cook terecht opmerkt, die kosten worden op ons
afgewenteld, terwijl de grote bedrijven doorgaan met het naar de
gallemiezen helpen van de planeet……**
Om
e.e.a. vol te kunnen houden zijn de media nodig, die weliswaar niet
langer kunnen schrijven dat er geen sprake is van een
klimaatverandering en dat deze een normaal verschijnsel is (de
klimaatverandering gaat sneller dan ooit eerder gezien sinds de
‘moderne’ mens op aarde rondloopt, alleen met een meteoor als die van 65
miljoen jaar geleden kan het sneller). De media kunnen niet langer
ontkennen dat er enorme kosten zijn verbonden aan de
klimaatverandering, vandaar dat men zwijgt over deze kosten, logisch
daar de plutocratische eigenaars van die media er alle belang bij
hebben dat de winsten van de grote bedrijven blijven bestaan, immers
daarvan zijn zij de grootaandeelhouders……. Ja toen Greta Thunberg van zich liet horen gaf het grootste deel van die media complimenten aan haar en de jeugd die haar volgde, echter niet voor lange duur….. Nu wordt ze in veel mediaorganen afgeschilderd als een psychiatrisch patiënt………
Cook
stelt verder dat het voorheen de religieuzen waren die werden beloond
door de vorsten, daar ze deze figuren hebben gepromoot bij het volk
met het dogma dat ze door god werden gezonden, zodat het plebs
gehoorzaam hun taak vervulde zonder vragen te stellen. Nu doen de
media in feite hetzelfde: men hersenspoelt het volk dat het
kapitalisme de enige ware weg is naar een beter leven, echter degenen
die het meest profiteren is maar een beperkte groep aangeduid als de
1% (al is dat wat mij betreft al te simpel, het is minstens 10% van
de mensheid die ongelofelijk profiteert van vernietiging en
onderdrukking), terwijl daarvoor de wereld zoals wij die kennen wordt
vernietigd…..
De westerse oorlogsmachine, het leger van de VS en andere NAVO-lidstaten (de NAVO altijd onder militair opperbevel van de VS!!), zorgt ervoor dat de grondstoffen en productiecentra ten behoeve van het westen veilig blijven voor exploratie en productie, dan wel daarvoor veilig worden gesteld…… Uiteraard met grote steun van de grote bedrijven als oliemaatschappijen en de geheime diensten, waar die diensten van de VS de hand niet omdraaien voor het organiseren van een opstand en een coup tegen een onwillig land……..
Cook
heeft een uitgebreid artikel geschreven op Information Clearing House dat de moeite van het lezen meer dan de moeite waard
is!! (onder het artikel kan je klikken voor een ‘Dutch vertaling’)
The Planet Cannot
Heal until We Rip the Mask off the West’s War Machine
By
Jonathan Cook
December 01, 2020
“Information
Clearing House”
– Making political sense of the world can be tricky unless one
understands the role of the state in capitalist societies. The state
is not primarily there to represent voters or uphold democratic
rights and values; it is a vehicle for facilitating and legitimating
the concentration of wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands.
In a recent
post, I wrote about “externalities” – the ability of
companies to offset the true costs inherent in the production
process. The burden of these costs are covertly shifted on to wider
society: that is, on to you and me. Or on to those far from view, in
foreign lands. Or on to future generations. Externalising costs means
that profits can be maximised for the wealth elite in the here and
now.
Jonathan Cook
@Jonathan_K_Cook
My latest: The increasingly desperate task of capitalism’s perception managers is to dissociate our economic system from the emerging environmental crisis – to break our understanding of the causal link between the two
Capitalism is double-billing us: we pay from our wallets only for our future to be stolen from us
Our own societies must
deal with the externalised costs of industries ranging from tobacco
and alcohol to chemicals and vehicles. Societies abroad must deal
with the costs of the bombs dropped by our “defence” industries.
And future generations will have to deal with the lethal costs
incurred by corporations that for decades have been allowed to pump
out their waste products into every corner of the globe.
Divine Right
to Rule
In the past, the job
of the corporate media was to shield those externalities from public
view. More recently, as the costs have become impossible to ignore,
especially with the climate crisis looming, the media’s role has
changed. Its central task now is to obscure corporate responsibility
for these externalities. That is hardly surprising. After all, the
corporate media’s profits depend on externalising costs too, as
well as hiding the externalised costs of their parent companies,
their billionaire owners and their advertisers.
Once, monarchs
rewarded the clerical class for persuading, through the doctrine of
divine right, their subjects to passively submit to exploitation.
Today, “mainstream” media are there to persuade us that
capitalism, the profit motive, the accumulation of ever greater
wealth by elites, and externalities destroying the planet are the
natural order of things, that this is the best economic model
imaginable.
Most of us are now so
propagandised by the media that we can barely imagine a functioning
world without capitalism. Our minds are primed to imagine, in the
absence of capitalism, an immediate lurch back to Soviet-style bread
queues or an evolutionary reversal to cave-dwelling. Those thoughts
paralyse us, making us unable to contemplate what might be wrong or
inherently unsustainable about how we live right now, or to imagine
the suicidal future we are hurtling towards.
Lifeblood of
Empire
There is a reason
that, as we rush lemming-like towards the cliff-edge, urged on by a
capitalism that cannot operate at the level of sustainability or even
of sanity, the push towards intensified war grows. Wars are the
lifeblood of the corporate empire headquartered in the United States.
Jonathan Cook
@Jonathan_K_Cook
My latest: The new documentary on Greta Thunberg – I Am Greta – isn’t about climate change. It’s about something even more important: the elusiveness of sanity in an insane world
US imperialism is no
different from earlier imperialisms in its aims or methods. But in
late-stage capitalism, wealth and power are hugely concentrated.
Technologies have reached a pinnacle of advancement. Disinformation
and propaganda are sophisticated to an unprecedented degree.
Surveillance is intrusive and aggressive, if well concealed.
Capitalism’s destructive potential is unlimited. But even so, war’s
appeal is not diminished.
As ever, wars allow
for the capture and control of resources. Fossil fuels promise future
growth, even if of the short-term, unsustainable kind.
Wars require the state
to invest its money in the horrendously expensive and destructive
products of the “defence” industries, from fighter planes to
bombs, justifying the transfer of yet more public resources into
private hands.
The lobbies associated
with these “defence” industries have every incentive to push for
aggressive foreign (and domestic) policies to justify more
investment, greater expansion of “defensive” capabilities, and
the use of weapons on the battlefield so that they need replenishing.
Whether public or
covert, wars provide an opportunity to remake poorly defended,
resistant societies – such as Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Syria – in
ways that allow for resources to be seized, markets to be expanded
and the reach of the corporate elite to be extended.
War is the ultimate
growth industry, limited only by our ability to be persuaded of new
enemies and new threats.
Fog of War
For the political
class, the benefits of war are not simply economic. In a time of
environmental collapse, war offers a temporary “Get out of jail”
card. During wars, the public is encouraged to assent to new, ever
greater sacrifices that allow public wealth to be transferred to the
elite. War is the corporate world’s ultimate Ponzi scheme.
The “fog of war”
does not just describe the difficulty of knowing what is happening in
the immediate heat of battle. It is also the fear, generated by
claims of an existential threat, that sets aside normal thinking,
normal caution, normal scepticism. It is the invoking of a
phantasmagorical enemy towards which public resentments can be
directed, shielding from view the real culprits – the corporations
and their political cronies at home.
The “fog of war”
engineers the disruption of established systems of control and
protocol to cope with the national emergency, shrouding and
rationalising the accumulation by corporations of more wealth and
power and the further capture of organs of the state. It is the
license provided for “exceptional” changes to the rules that
quickly become normalized. It is the disinformation that passes for
national responsibility and patriotism.
Permanent
Austerity
All of which explains
why Boris Johnson, Britain’s prime minister, has just pledged
an extra £16.5 billion in “defense” spending at a time when the
UK is struggling to control a pandemic and when, faced by disease,
Brexit and a new round of winter floods, the British economy is
facing “systemic crisis”, according to a new Cabinet Office
report. Figures released last week show
the biggest economic contraction in the UK in three centuries.
If the British public
is to stomach yet more cuts, to surrender to permanent austerity as
the economy tanks, Johnson, ever the populist, knows he needs a good
cover story. And that will involve further embellishment of existing,
fearmongering narratives about Russia, Iran and China.
To make those
narratives plausible, Johnson has to act as if the threats are real,
which means massive spending on “defence”. Such expenditure,
wholly counter-productive when the current challenge is
sustainability, will line the pockets of the very corporations that
help Johnson and his pals stay in power, not least by cheerleading
him via their media arms.
New Salesman
Needed
The cynical way this
works was underscored in a classified 2010 CIA memorandum, known as
“Red Cell”, leaked to Wikileaks, as the journalist Glenn
Greenwald reminded us last week. The CIA memo addressed
the fear in Washington that European publics were demonstrating
little appetite for the US-led “war on terror” that followed
9/11. That, in turn, risked limiting the ability of European allies
to support the US as it exercised its divine right to wage war.
The memo notes that
European support for US wars after 9/11 had chiefly relied on “public
apathy” – the fact that Europeans were kept largely ignorant by
their own media of what those wars entailed. But with a rising tide
of anti-war sentiment, the concern was that this might change. There
was an urgent need to further manipulate public opinion more
decisively in favour of war.
The US intelligence
agency decided its wars needed a facelift. George W Bush, with his
Texan, cowboy swagger, had proved a poor salesman. So the CIA turned
to identity politics and faux “humanitarianism”, which they
believed would play better with European publics.
Part of the solution
was to accentuate the suffering of Afghan women to justify war. But
the other part was to use President Barack Obama as the face of a
new, “caring” approach to war. He had recently been awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize – even though he had done nothing for peace, and
would go on to expand US wars – very possibly as part of this same
effort to reinvent the “war on terror”. Polls showed support for
existing wars increased markedly among Europeans when they were
reminded that Obama backed these wars.
“Obama’s
most important value was in prettifying, marketing and prolonging
wars, not ending them. They saw him for what U.S. Presidents really
are: instruments to create a brand and image about the U.S. role in
the world that can be effectively peddled to both the domestic
population in the U.S. and then on the global stage, and specifically
to pretend that endless barbaric U.S. wars are really humanitarian
projects benevolently designed to help people — the pretext used to
justify every war by every country in history.”
Obama-style
Facelift
Once the state is
understood as a vehicle for entrenching elite power – and war its
most trusted tool for concentrating power – the world becomes far
more intelligible. Western economies never stopped being colonial
economies, but they were given an Obama-style facelift. War and
plunder – even when they masquerade as “defence”, or peace –
are still the core western mission.
That is why Britons,
believing days of empire are long behind them, might have been
shocked to learn last week that the UK still operates 145 military
bases in 42 countries around the globe, meaning it runs the second
largest network of such bases after the US.
Such information is
not made available in the UK “mainstream” media, of course. It
has to be provided by an “alternative” investigative site,
Declassified UK. In that way the vast majority of the British public
are left clueless about how their taxes are being used at a time when
they are told further belt-tightening is essential.
Declassified UK
@declassifiedUK
REVEALED — The UK military’s overseas base network involves 145 sites in 42 countries.
The results of a months-long investigation by @pmillerinfo
The UK’s network of
bases, many of them in the Middle East, close to the world’s
largest oil reserves, are what the much-vaunted “special
relationship” with the US amounts to. Those bases are the reason
the UK – whoever is prime minister – is never going to say “no”
to a demand that Britain join Washington in waging war, as it did in
attacking Iraq in 2003, or in aiding attacks on Libya, Syria and
Yemen. The UK is not only a satellite of the US empire, it is a
lynchpin of the western imperial war economy.
Ideological
Alchemy
Once that point is
appreciated, the need for external enemies – for our own Eurasias
and Eastasias – becomes clearer.
Some of those enemies,
the minor ones, come and go, as demand dictates. Iraq dominated
western attention for two decades. Now it has served its purpose, its
killing fields and “terrorist” recruiting grounds have reverted
to a mere footnote in the daily news. Likewise, the Libyan bogeyman
Muammar Gaddafi was constantly paraded across news pages until he was
bayonetted to death. Now the horror story that is today’s chaotic
Libya, a corridor for arms-running and people-trafficking, can be
safely ignored. For a decade, the entirely unexceptional Arab
dictator Bashar Assad, of Syria, has been elevated to the status of a
new Hitler, and he will continue to serve in that role for as long as
it suits the needs of the western war economy.
Notably, Israel,
another lynchpin of the US empire and one that serves as a kind of
offshored weapons testing laboratory for the military-industrial
complex, has played a vital role in rationalising these wars. Just as
saving Afghan women from Middle Eastern patriarchy makes killing
Afghans – men, women and children – more palatable to Europeans,
so destroying Arab states can be presented as a humanitarian gesture
if at the same time it crushes Israel’s enemies, and by extension,
through a strange, implied ideological alchemy, the enemies of all
Jews.
Quite how
opportunistic – and divorced from reality – the western discourse
about Israel and the Middle East has become is obvious the moment the
relentless concerns about Syria’s Assad are weighed against the
casual indifference towards the head-chopping rulers of Saudi Arabia,
who for decades have been financing terror groups across the Middle
East, including the jihadists in Syria.
During that time,
Israel has covertly allied with oil-rich Saudi Arabia and other Gulf
states, because all of them are safely ensconced within the US war
machine. Now, with the Palestinians completely sidelined
diplomatically, and with all international solidarity with
Palestinians browbeaten into silence by antisemitism smears, Israel
and the Saudis are gradually going public with their alliance, like a
pair of shy lovers. That included the convenient leak this week of a
secret meeting between
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi ruler Mohammed
bin Salman in Saudi Arabia.
Israel’s likely
reward is contained in a new
bill in Congress for even more military aid than the record $3.8
billion Israel currently receives annually from the US – at a time
when the US economy, like the UK one, is in dire straits.
Jonathan Cook
@Jonathan_K_Cook
My latest: Pompeo’s declaration that criticism of Israel and the peaceful movement urging a boycott of its settlements are ‘antisemitic’ marks the logical endpoint of a foreign policy consensus rapidly taking shape in the US and Europe
The west also needs
bigger, more menacing and more permanent enemies than Iraq or Syria.
Helpfully one kind – nebulous “terrorism” – is the inevitable
reaction to western war-making. The more brown people we kill, the
more brown people we can justify killing because they carry out, or
support, “terrorism” against us. Their hatred for our bombs is an
irrationality, a primitivism we must keep stamping out with more
bombs.
But concrete,
identifiable enemies are needed too. Russia, Iran and China give
superficial credence to the war machine’s presentation of itself as
a “defence” industry. The UK’s bases around the globe and Boris
Johnson’s £16.5 billion rise in spending on the UK’s war
industries only make sense if Britain is under a constant,
existential threat. Not just someone with a suspicious backpack on
the London Tube, but a sophisticated, fiendish enemy that threatens
to invade our lands, to steal resources to which we claim exclusive
rights, to destroy our way of life through its masterful manipulation
of the internet.
Voor de
rest van het artikel zie het origineel en lees verder bij
het ‘hoofdstuk’ getiteld: ‘Crushed
or Tamed‘
*
De klimaatverandering is niet meer te stoppen, hoe vaak de politiek
en de media je ook vertellen dat ‘we’ dat voor elkaar kunnen krijgen
en dat we de temperatuurstijging kunnen stoppen op 1,5 graad Celsius
tegen het eind van deze eeuw. Er zijn meerdere cumulatieve effecten
gaande, die de klimaatverandering steeds verder aanjagen. ‘We’ mogen
blij zijn als tegen het eind van de eeuw de temperatuur met niet meer
dan 5 graden C. zal zijn gestegen en dat betekent dat een fiks deel
van Nederland tegen die tijd onbewoonbaar zal zijn geworden, door een
enorme stijging van de zeespiegel…….
** Hetzelfde is in feite aan de hand met het Crononavirus: terwijl de wereld ‘vecht’ tegen het Coronavirus waarbij de economie wordt vernietiged en velen in diepe ellende werden en worden gestort, gaan de militaire laboratoria door met het ontwikkelen van dodelijk besmettelijke ziekten als wapen voor oorlogsvoering…… In Fort Detrick in de VS staat zo’n (groot) militair laboratorium, dat werd vorig jaar zomer in grote paniek gesloten daar een gevaarlijk virus was ontsnapt….. (het Coronavirus???) Nu draait dat laboratorium weer als ‘vanouds….’ (hoe is ‘t mogelijk??!!!) Overigens is het wel bijzonder vreemd dat men zoveel maatregelen treft voor het Coronavirus als je nagaat dat alleen in ons land ieder jaar rond de 18.000 mensen vroegtijdig overlijden ten gevolge van langdurige auto-uitstoot inademing…… (en dat na een akelig ziekbed) Waarom worden daarvoor niet ongelofelijk veel maatregelen getroffen om dit binnen1 of 2 jaar te stoppen?? (Hetzelfde geldt voor alcoholgebruik, ook door deze harddrug vallen jaarlijks vele duizenden doden……)
Caitlin
Johnstone heeft een allegorie geschreven over de VS, waarbij ze de
president van van de VS als keizer neerzet die oorlogszuchtig zoveel
mogelijk landen wil overheersen middels oorlog en intimidatie,
daarbij geholpen door de geheime dienst.
Deze
geheime dienst houdt de keizer voor dat hij een middel als 9/11 tot
z’n beschikking heeft om landen als Rusland, Iran en China aan te
kunnen pakken, waarbij ‘het mooie’ is, dat alleen de geheime dienst
kan zien dat die landen hem aanvallen als zou het een tweede 9/11
zijn…….
Zo
rolden afgelopen 2 weken maar liefst 3 van deze ‘aanvalsgolven’ van de
gedachtebank die deze geheime dienst heeft opgezet. De eerste weer
met Rusland als spin in het web en in de tweede worden Iran en China
genoemd als de grote boosdoeners, in de derde worden dan weer Russische militairen als dader aangemerkt…… Waarbij niet vergeten moet
worden dat middels de Wikileaks Vault 7 en 8 documenten blijkt dat
de geheime diensten van de VS een hack-aanval kunnen uitvoeren
waarbij men het kan doen voorkomen alsof de dader in een ander land dan de VS
huist…….Je begrijpt dat zogenaamde manipulatie middels boodschappen op de sociale media, vele malen makkelijker is…..
Overigens kan je de hiervoor beschreven soort acties ook zien als ‘false flag operaties’, immers men levert een smerige streek, waarbij niet zelden mensen omkomen en schuift die in de schoenen van een ander, zoals de gifgasaanvallen ‘gepleegd door het Syrische leger’, terwijl deze werden uitgevoerd door de zogenaamde rebellengroepen, bestaande uit psychopathisch geteisem dat de hand niet omdraait, voor slavenhandel, martelingen, amputaties, verkrachtingen en moord……… De westerse landen die mee hebben gedaan aan die oorlog wisten zelfs dat deze terreurgroepen beschikten over gifgas, maar hebben daar niets tegen ondernomen……
Ondanks al deze kennis geloven de reguliere westerse
media die geheime diensten (naast de CIA moet trouwens ook de NSA
genoemd worden als mededader*) en herhalen deze leugens zonder enig
onderzoek, terwijl ze daar dondersgoed weten dat die geheime diensten enorm veel vaker hebben gelogen dan dat ze de waarheid
hebben gebracht…..
Alleen al het feit dat Trump het stemmen door grote hoeveelheden VS burgers onmogelijk wil maken, een zaak waar men nu al een paar maanden mee bezig is, o.a. door het vernietigen van grote postsorteermachines, een veel groter gevaar is voor het democratische stemrecht, zelfs als de leugens van de CIA en NSA waar zouden zijn geweest……. Ach ja, van een democratie in de VS is al lang geen sprake meer……
Lees de
mooie allegorie van Caitlin en zegt het voort, ook onze politici en media (zelfs
de zogenaamd onafhankelijke zendgemachtigde NOS), herhalen deze leugens als groot nieuws…… Het meest belachelijke daaraan is wel dat zendgemachtigden als de NOS (vanmorgen ook nog eens in VPRO’s OVT op Radio1) en andere reguliere mediaorganen de vuilbek volhebben van complottheorieën, terwijl ze zelf juist de brengers zijn van complottheorieën bedacht door de geheime diensten in de VS……..
I’d
like to tell you a folktale. It’s called “The Emperor’s New
9/11”.
Once
upon a time there was an Emperor who loved war and military
expansionism. He was always searching for new ways to instigate
military conflicts without losing the support of the international
community or waking up the populace to the fact that they’re just
propagandized cogs in the machine of a globe-spanning Empire which
uses endless military and economic violence to maintain its unipolar
hegemony.
One
day two men calling themselves Intelligence Experts came into town
claiming that they had devised a wondrous new type of enemy threat
that is invisible to the common folk.
“Is
it as good as 9/11?” asked the Emperor excitedly. “Oh how I
loved how that one allowed me to initiate a new era of military
expansionism on the pretence of fighting global terrorism!”
“It’s
even better!” explained the Intelligence Experts. “This
magical enemy threat is comprised of Cyber Attacks which are
completely invisible to public scrutiny, and you have complete
control over where and when they happen. You just name a foreign
government you don’t like, and we’ll say they have attacked the
democracy of the Empire!”
“You
mean the pretend democracy I lied to them about having?” asked
the Emperor.
“Of
course,” said the Intelligence Experts. “So you just name
the disobedient government you want a fight with and we’ll give you
your new 9/11.”
“Hmm,
well I’m not very fond of the Russians,” said the Emperor.
“They’ve been brazenly acting against our interests on the world
stage and they keep getting friendlier with China. Let’s set to work
on them first.”
So
the Intelligence Experts set to work weaving their narrative about
Russian Cyber Attacks. The Emperor put his mass media to work
knitting together wonderful yarns of the Emperor’s wonderous new
9/11, simultaneously invisible to commoners yet outrageous and
necessitating an aggressive response.
The
extreme war rhetoric about Russia coming from elite discourse is as
deceitful as it is dangerous: What retaliation should the U.S. use?
theintercept.com
178
The
Empire’s military budget was inflated, treaties were ended, and a new
arms race was begun. Sanctions were rolled out against the Russian
government, the Empire’s Nuclear Posture Review was readjusted with a
much more hostile stance toward Moscow, troops were deployed and NATO
was expanded. Anyone who objected to any of this was labeled Russian
propaganda by the Empire.
“Oh,
this is wonderful!” exclaimed the Emperor. “Let’s do Iran
now! Ooh! And China too!”
“Iran
and China have been attacking the Empire’s democracy!” announced
the Intelligence Experts. “It’s like another 9/11!”
All
was going swimmingly, until one day the Emperor was parading his new
9/11 around town for the commoners to admire.
“Oh,
this 9/11 is even more impressive than the last one!” exclaimed
the people. “I would happily throw my body into the gears of the
war machine for it! Praise be to our mighty Emperor!”
Then
one tiny voice rang out above the rest.
“But
the Emperor hasn’t got a 9/11!” said a small child. “There’s
nothing there at all!”
The
child was immediately branded a Russian propagandist and banned from
Facebook and Twitter.
No Matter Who Wins, The War Machine Wins The
US government is pushing yet another unproven election meddling
narrative about yet another disobedient government, this time targeting
Iran and Russia. This is exhausting. Do I really need to…
It
is not a coincidence that all these alleged attacks on American
democracy are happening in ways that only the US intelligence cartel
can see. It is not a coincidence that the US propaganda machine is
constantly announcing invisible new attacks upon the nation from
governments that have been longtime targets of that same intelligence
cartel. It is not a coincidence that whenever these alleged attacks
happen, the hard evidence that they happened is always classified.
Foreign
“election interference” is 9/11 minus 9/11. It gets all the
same urgent media coverage of 9/11, all the same outrage and all the
same demand for forceful retaliation; it just doesn’t have the fallen
buildings that people can look at or the bereaved family members that
you can talk to. It’s a 9/11 that is completely invisible to
everyone, so we have to take the word of intelligence agencies with
an extensive history of lying that they happened at all.
Meanwhile,
as the US is being victimized by these attacks that only the CIA and
NSA can see, the US government is harming the American people to an
infinitely greater degree than Russia, China and Iran are. The US
government is destroying untold millions of lives at home and abroad,
but Americans are being told to worry about invisible attacks by
foreign countries that have literally never done anything to them.
Don’t
be a sucker. Be the child at the Emperor’s parade.
————————————–
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De
verhalen over manipulatie door Rusland, China en Iran van de presidentsverkiezingen in de VS,
die volgende week dinsdag plaatsvinden, buitelen over elkaar heen, alsof de ambtenaren
van de inlichtingendiensten een strijd uitvechten wie de meest
geloofwaardige leugen kan brengen…… De afgelopen 10 dagen kwamen er
maar liefst 3 van deze leugens voorbij rollen……(‘geheel toevallig ook dat de 3 genoemden landen door de VS als hun vijanden, ja zelfs als de as van kwaad zijn aangemerkt…’)
De
reguliere westerse media vinden het allemaal prachtig al moet ik
zeggen dat de belangstelling voor die leugens bij die media afneemt,
blijkbaar heeft men wel door dat de verhalen wel wat erg sterk worden
aangezet….. In 2016 hadden we het meer dan lullige sprookje
Russiagate, waar de Democraten 4 jaar lang over door zijn blijven
zeuren, ondanks dat deze leugen op meerdere manieren werd
doorgeprikt, blijft men deze leugen ook in de internationale westerse media herhalen……
Als
de journalisten van die media eindelijk eens de moeite zouden nemen
om Wikileaks door te spitten, hadden ze bijvoorbeeld geweten dat de
VS leugens de wereld inhelpt, zoals die over het manipuleren van verkiezingen en deze toeschrijft aan
Russische/Iraanse/Chinese trollenfabrieken of trollenboerderijen
(benieuwd wat de volgende vergelijking wordt), terwijl ze de servers
van die landen gebruiken om aan te tonen dat die landen dit hebben
gedaan, e.e.a staat beschreven in de Vault 8 documenten op
Wikileaks….. Zo kan de VS een ander land met enorme leugens
demoniseren, terwijl de geheime diensten als de CIA zelf het e.e.a.
op touw hebben gezet, dit soort handelingen noemt men ook wel ‘false
flag operaties…..’
Hieronder
een bedel-artikel van Common Dreams waarin wordt beschreven hoe de staat
Texas werkelijk de verkiezingen manipuleert….. Zo heeft de Texaanse gouverneur
Greg Abbott mensen verboden om via de post te stemmen, daarop heeft men
stembussen op diverse plaatsen gezet zodat men daar de stemmen kwijt
kan. Ook daar heeft de Republikeinse gouverneur een eind aan gemaakt,
per county van Texas mag nog maar 1 zo’n bus staan, terwijl één van
die counties groter is dan de staat Oregon, ofwel veel kiezers zullen daar vanwege de afstand geen gebruik van kunnen maken (counties zou je hier moeten schrijven als ‘county’s’)…… Mensen die op
de dag van stemming de zaken in stembureaus controleren zullen daar
worden dwarsgezeten door ‘echte observators’ van Trump….. (alsof psychopaat Trump en zijn fascistische bendes de meest vertrouwenswaardige figuren op de wereld zijn…. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!)
Het
voorgaande bestaat uit maar een paar voorbeelden waarop de
verkiezingen worden gemanipuleerd in de VS (men kan al een paar weken
stemmen) en nog zullen worden gemanipuleerd, niet door Rusland, China of
Iran, maar door de VS zelf!! Overigens zal het voor de meerderheid van het VS volk niet uitmaken wie er wint, immers de
Democraten beloven veel, maar lobbyen in de praktijk voor het grote
bedrijfsleven (waarbij de farmaceutische industrie nog apart moet worden genoemd), de financiële maffia (banken en verzekeringsmaatschappijen) en het militair-industrieel
complex en nee, de belangen van deze bedrijven en diensten komen voor verreweg het grootste
deel niet overeen met die van dat (meer en meer verarmde) volksdeel…….
De totaal belachelijke tekst die de staat Texas heeft losgelaten op de bevolking, ook hier weer waarschuwingen voor ‘aanvallen’ van derden en men het volk voorhoudt alleen de officiële websites van de Texas overheid te vertrouwen…… ha! ha! ha! ha!
We’re
seeing jaw dropping voter suppression
Texas
is one of the key battleground states that could determine not just
the outcome of the presidential election, but also control of the
U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.
And
Texas Republicans are doing everything they can to make it more
difficult for people to vote, especially voters in heavily populated
urban areas.
First,
Texas refused to allow voters concerned about COVID-19 to cast their
ballots by mail, one of the only states to do so. Then, when local
elected officials started setting up ballot drop boxes for early
voters, Governor Abbott restricted those drop boxes to one per
county—despite the fact that the biggest county in Texas is larger
than the state of Connecticut and the most populous county has more
people than 25 states.
As
the Harris County Clerk said, “They are doing everything they can
to keep people from voting.”
But
that’s not all. In recent years, Texas has reduced the number of
polling places by more than 50%. Governor Abbott has invited true
Trump “observers” into ballot counting rooms to intimidate ballot
counters. And between now and the end of this election, there will
undoubtedly be more dirty tricks.
But
voting rights groups are fighting back, and so are we.
From now until the end of this election, we will watchdog and call
out every instance of voter suppression. More important, we will tell
you, our readers, what you can do about it: join the volunteer
opportunities, protests, and voting rights organizations working to
protect the results.
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!
Gisteren
om 3.00 u. ‘s nachts het bericht op BBC World Service dat volgens
een aanklacht van het VS ministerie van justitie, 6 officieren van de
Russische militaire geheime dienst GROe zaken als de Olympische
Winterspelen, de Franse presidentsverkiezingen van 2017, ziekenhuizen en
bedrijven hebben gehackt….. Dacht even er weer eens in te blijven
(een lachstuip van minstens een halve minuut), waar haalt men de
onzin vandaan?? (kwam een bericht tegen op het net waar men sprak
over de Olympische Winterspelen in Tokyo!!! ha! ha! ha! ha! >> moet zijn de Olympische Winterspelen van 2014 in het Russische Sotsji)
Toen ik
later een artikel las van ABC’s 7 News las, werd aan het e.e.a ook
nog eens toegevoegd dat het hier om dezelfde figuren ging die de
presidentsverkiezingen van 2016 zouden hebben gemanipuleerd middels het hacken van de DNC servers, ofwel die
verantwoordelijk waren voor ‘Russiagate….’ ha! ha! ha! ha! Dat hele
onzinnige verhaal is al van meerder kanten doorgeprikt, maar de
reguliere westerse media en de meeste westerse politici houden deze
enorme leugen in leven, door deze tot vervelens toe te herhalen,
terwijl er niet een nanometer aan bewijs voor geleverd kan
worden…… ABC gaat nog wat verder door te stellen dat Putin zelf
wel eens zou hebben kunnen meegewerkt aan deze hack pogingen……..
ha! ha! ha! ha!
Ach ja de VS, zo de waard is vertrouwt deze de gasten!! (waar voor VS hacken enz. meters aan bewijzen zijn aangelegd, zie alleen al WikiLeaks!! oh daarover gesproken ABC durft zelfs WikiLeaks als bron te noemen, echter die hebben er geen letter over gepubliceerd!! maakt niet uit geen hond die deze leugens controleert…….)
Ben
totaal verbaasd dat dit nieuws Nederland niet heeft bereikt, althans
kan er niets over vinden in de Nederlandse media, blijkbaar heeft men
eindelijk het licht gezien en begrijpt dat hoe vaker dergelijke
beschuldigingen de revue passeren, hoe ongeloofwaardiger ze worden,
immers eerder deden de Nederlandse media maar wat graag mee aan deze
flauwe kul. Zelfs BNR’s levende rollade Bernard Hammelburg maakte er
tot nu toe geen woord aan vuil, terwijl hij altijd hijgend vooraan
staat als het om beschuldigingen aan het adres van Rusland gaat…..
Vanmorgen besteedde hij een uiterst hypocriete column aan de moord op
een docent vorige week in Frankrijk, wellicht later nog een bericht
daarover (heb te weinig tijd mensen)
Hier het
opgeklopte artikel van ABC:
6
Russian military officers charged in vast hacking campaign targeting
Olympics, U.S. businesses
By Eric
Tucker
Tuesday,
October 20, 2020 12:33PM
(op deze plek een video die ik niet over kan nemen, zie daarvoor het origineel)
WASHINGTON
— Six current and former Russian military officers sought to disrupt
through computer hacking the French election, the Winter Olympics and
U.S. hospitals and businesses, according to a Justice Department
indictment unsealed Monday. It details destructive attacks on a broad
range of targets and implicates the same Kremlin unit that interfered
in the 2016 U.S. election.
The indictment accuses the
defendants, all said to be officers in the Russian military agency
known as the GRU, in hacks that prosecutors say were aimed at
furthering the Kremlin’s geopolitical interests and as retribution
against its perceived enemies.
They
include attacks against Ukraine’s power grid; a hack-and-leak
operation directed at the political party of French President
Emmanuel Macron in the days leading up to the 2017 election; efforts
to punish Olympics organizers who had banned Russian athletes for
doping, and to impede an investigation into the suspected nerve-agent
poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter.
The
indictment does not charge the defendants in connection with
interference in American elections, though the officers are part of
the same military intelligence unit that prosecutors say interfered
in the 2016 U.S. presidential election by hacking Democratic email
accounts. One of the six charged in the case announced Monday was
among the Russian military intelligence officers charged with hacking
in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian
election interference.
The 50-page indictment, filed in
federal court in Pittsburgh, also accuses the hackers of destroying
malicious software in 2017 that crippled computers around the globe,
including at a Pennsylvania hospital and a pharmaceutical company.
The criminal conspiracy alleged by the Justice Department enables
prosecutors to include allegations for victims that are not based in
the U.S.
None of the six defendants is currently in custody,
but the Justice Department in recent years has eagerly charged
foreign hackers in absentia with the goal of creating a message of
deterrence.
“No country has weaponized its cyber
capabilities as maliciously and irresponsibly as Russia, wantonly
causing unprecedented collateral damage to pursue small tactical
advantages as fits of spite,” Assistant Attorney General John
Demers, the Justice Department’s top national security official, said
at a news conference announcing the case.
The indictment
fleshes out details about hacks that in some instances had already
received significant attention for the havoc they had caused.
The
controversy known as the ” Macron Leaks,” for instance, was
the leak of over 20,000 emails linked to Macron’s campaign in the
2017 election in the days before his victory. The involvement of bots
raised questions about the possible involvement of Vladimir Putin and
the Russian government.
The leaks, which gained huge media
attention in France, were shared by WikiLeaks and several Alt-right
activists on Twitter, Facebook and others.
After Russia was
punished by the International Olympic Committee for a vast doping
conspiracy at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, hackers targeted
sports agencies around the world.
More than 250 athletes’
medical records were published and confidential data from some of the
world’s biggest sports organizations – the Olympics, world track and
field, FIFA – were stolen, in what U.S. prosecutors said was
retaliation for the doping punishments.
Other Olympic-related
organizations were also hit by hackers: the world track and field
body, which suspended Russia from in 2015 over widespread doping;
Canada’s anti-doping agency, a trenchant critic of Russia; the Court
of Arbitration for Sport, which ruled against some Russian athletes.
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
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