The award is judged by a group of retired senior US military and intelligence personnel, and past winners. This year the award to Julian Assange was unanimous.
Previous winners and ceremony locations:
Coleen Rowley of the FBI; in Washington, D.C.
Katharine Gun of British intelligence; in Copenhagen, Denmark
Sibel Edmonds of the FBI; in Washington, D.C.
Craig Murray, former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan; in New York City
Sam Provance, former sergeant, U.S. Army, truth-teller about Abu Ghraib; in Washington, D.C.
Frank Grevil, major, Danish army intelligence, imprisoned for giving the Danish press documents showing that Denmark’s prime minister disregarded warnings that there was no authentic evidence of WMDs in Iraq; in Copenhagen, Denmark
Larry Wilkerson, colonel, U.S. Army (retired), former chief of staff to Secretary Colin Powell at the State Department, who has exposed what he called the “Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal”; in Washington, D.C.
http://original.antiwar.com/mcgovern/2010/08/15/can-wikileaks-help-save-lives/
Not sure yet where this year’s award ceremony will be held, but I’ll be there.
Mark, by “anthrax is the key…”, do you mean Porton Down and anthrax and God-knows-what-else? Please would elaborate? Thanks.
Angrysober,
re – David Kelly’s family here from:
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/06/doune_the_rabbi.html
“Janice Kelly and the family of Dr David Kelly have endured misery for far too long. Since being turfed out into the garden in the cold in her dressing gown while ‘police’ stripped the wall-paper of her house; witnessed a death certificate that bluntly said ‘found’ as the place of death and unsigned by a doctor; told that friends and colleagues should not attend the burial; told by Hoon MP that he had evidence in this case that could bring Blair down as Prime-Minister; forced to sell up and move away by intimidation.”
– least we forget?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/22/david-kelly-tony-blair-iraq-wmd
“Of course. A “textbook” case would have to establish beyond reasonable doubt the intention of the victim to take his own life.”
“Why?”
Because without evidence that the victim intended to take his own life there remains some doubt that it was really suicide. This is obvious stuff.
Of course many suicides occur without this evidence but these are not “textbook” cases, which was the point at issue.
“Time to put away such nonsense”.
All that is being demanded is that there is a proper inquest, conducted by a coroner with the powers of a court to call witnesses and experts to testify under oath. This is a legal requirement in cases such as these. The only nonsense thus far is that this requirement has not yet been met.
There was also David Kelly’s cousin who very recently voiced her concern. I’m not sure how reliable the ex-KGB man is, though. But he has presented potentially explosive information. And who is this Everett person? Mai Pederson. The whole matter becomes murkier and murkier, with spies and ‘ex-spies’ circling around like black crows.
The MSM and our politicians, etc. – were all very eager to believe that Litvinenko was assassinated and willing to believe that Russia did it. No-one talked about ‘conspiracy theories’ then. It was simply accepted that there had been a conspiracy to murder. Someone obviously murdered Anna Politkovskaya; there was a conspiracy there, too, which, unfortunately, successfully eliminated this brave journalist.
“Because without evidence that the victim intended to take his own life there remains some doubt that it was really suicide. This is obvious stuff.
Of course many suicides occur without this evidence but these are not “textbook” cases, which was the point at issue.”
This is false. All you are doing is creating your own definition of a “textbook” case and then saying David Kelly’s didn’t match yours. How do you know this is Dr Hunt’s definition?
It appears to me, that instead he is basing it on the fact that there is no evidence for anyone else being there when David Kelly died. No sign of a struggle but signs of hesitancy in the act of suicide.
“The MSM and our politicians, etc. – were all very eager to believe that Litvinenko was assassinated and willing to believe that Russia did it. No-one talked about ‘conspiracy theories’ then.”
Do you think there was a plausible case for suicide?
” It was simply accepted that there had been a conspiracy to murder. Someone obviously murdered Anna Politkovskaya; there was a conspiracy there, too, which, unfortunately, successfully eliminated this brave journalist.”
She was gunned down in her apartment building and her murder caught on camera.
These analogies are NOTHING LIKE David Kelly’s death.
Well, yes, but Litvinenko’s death may not have been so clearcut; there were aspersions cast that he may have been handling radioactive material; others have pointed fingers towards various other possible dynamics. I’m not saying that’s the case, not at all, simply that at various stages in the case, there might have been other possibilities. Yet the MSM mostly leapt immediately and conclusively at the ‘Russia assassinates’ conspiracy theory.
Politkovskaya was assassinated, though we don;t really know yet by whom. My point in mentioning her death was that there was likely to have been a conspiracy against her – by those who plotted her death.
Yet in neither of these cases – each very different from the other, really almost as different as they both are from the David Kelly case – was the phrase, ‘conspiracy theory’ used.
There seems to have been a presupposition and dominant assumption on the part of our authorities here in the UK that in two of the cases (the Russian ones), there was a conspiracy to murder but that in the third (Kelly) there was not. The language used by most of the MSM (in this case, The Daily Mail excepted!) then tends to support the initial, dominant thesis.
“The language used by most of the MSM (in this case, The Daily Mail excepted!) then tends to support the initial, dominant thesis.”
Yes. What’s sauce for the goose is not acceptable sauce for the gander. Or to put it another way, an “acceptable” thesis is put to the media by an “official” source, and following that all other theories are labelled “conspiracy theories”. No matter what holes are in the “official” one. Like ulnar arteries closing up after being severed? Or how clots can soak into the ground and disappear, when they don’t even soak into soft cloth? Or why the 80% blocked coronary artery is only being mentioned now? Dr Michael Powers QC has said there is more evidence in the Sunday Times than was put before Hutton. (Channel 4 Snowmail) He’s due on Channel 4 News at 6.30.
And as Angry knows very, very well, this subject was thrashed out on an earlier David Kelly thread where he lost out badly, but he’s still insisting on bringing up his objections here …
I find myself wondering why he finds his own blog so boring.
I seem to remember Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace prize. This award to Assange is in the same league.
“And as Angry knows very, very well, this subject was thrashed out on an earlier David Kelly thread where he lost out badly, but he’s still insisting on bringing up his objections here …”
This isn’t true. I only pointed out that David Kelly died months after the Iraq War started and that his death couldn’t have smoothed the way for the Iraq invasion.
My objections here are to the insinuations that the pathologist is being “wheeled out” as if not of his own volition when the fact is that he’s being casually accused of conspiracy to murder and may want to defend his name.
they killed a million people in Iraq. they’re killing people every day in Afghanistan. people are dying from state-sponsored violence everywhere. politskvaya’s murder means that the press can focus on her death, and ignore the atrocities she uncovered. i bet elements are delighted that kelly’s death looks so dodgy, whether they were responsible for it or not.
sorry, have gone a bit Diceman recently. carry on.
Having read some of Politkovskaya’s work I would agree that there were quite a number of people who would want to kill her and jumping to the Kremlin conclusion rules out too many other possibilities. She had been quite a thorn in the side of organized crime and of certain people in Russia’s military and the government installed by Russia in Chechnya. As a journalist she was astonishingly brave and more so because of the fact that power politics in Russia is almost certainly a far more cut-throat business than it is in Britain. That really is the truth, and messing with the military, the police (in its various forms), the mafia and the corrupt politicians is extremely hazardous. (No doubt attempts to equate Britain will now be made but such attempts are ludicrous.)
The fact is that a lot of people had a motive for going after Politkovskaya and they weren’t shy about doing it.
Journalism in Russia is a seriously dangerous occupation:
http://cpj.org/killed/europe/russia/
In David Kelly’s case there is hugely compelling evidence (if not completely conclusive according to some) that he killed himself and had apparently telegraphed his intent (at least in hindsight) there appeared to be no obvious motive for his murder (so one is often surmised) and the people closest to him are convinced it was suicide as was the pathologist and the police officer who found him.
But eddie, if Kissinger were in govt today, I’ll bet you’d be supporting him in his proposal to bomb [insert name of country] into the Stone Age on behalf of the security of the USA and the ‘Free World’.
Good point, anonymous at 6:31pm. But it is the possible link and leverage b/w the alleged individual state assassinations and the mass state atrocities that is key. In terms of critique, both tracks must proceed apace. They are not mutually exclusive.
Zionist troll,
yes, we have all read the words of Cohen, the radical author of “Waiting for the Etonians: Reports from the Sickbed of Liberal England”
He challenges the left as hypocrites ‘standing on their heads’ after the blood-bath of an illegal Iraq war. Cohen’s drift towards neo-conservatism over the last eight years seems to have beeen caused by a perceived view that the liberal left has apologised for a militant Islam while neglected the aspirations of moderate Muslims. His radar has obviously missed the diverse range of democratic Muslim voices.
Cohen’s attempts at ‘purifying’ the left from within are misguided and in clear view are a dangerous pursuit of a ‘war on terrorism’ as confronting one homogeneous army of radically different Muslims many of which are strands of the intelligence services.
Poke your liberal interventionism Cohen and start rowing back to the facts; the starving Iraqi children, crucified by sanctions; the shock & awe; the divide and conquer rules in Iraq that ordained our own special forces to dress as Arabs and plant bombs and explosives; the refusal of Mrs Blair, Dr Barnardo’s President to answer my cries of help for the malnourished Iraqi children. Fuck your money Mr Blair’s donated to veterans – who needs blood money?
We live in a confused and topsy-turvy time but true liberals see thru the mist of deception and Nick Cohen’s ‘follies of the Left’ are in the real world our fight, our battle and our atonement.
“This isn’t true. I only pointed out that David Kelly died months after the Iraq War started and that his death couldn’t have smoothed the way for the Iraq invasion.”
–angrysoba
Excuse me??? You don’t remember telling me that people had died from cutting one ulnar artery and when I asked you where those reports were you had nothing?? You don’t remember the discussion about how there were 20+ tablets missing but the post mortem found that he had only ingested a normal dose, i.e. one or two??
I agree, angrysoba, that Anna Politkovskaya was a very courageous woman who was working in a terrifying environment, in which editors and journalists across Russia are murdered on a frequent basis, esp. if they try to expose corruption. She remained in Russia even when she knew that her life was in grave danger, because, she said, it was her job and how would she have been able to do her job from a position of exile? Also, I wonder whether, having faced death several times (at least); she’d been subjected to a mock-execution in a pit and had been poisoned on an aeroplane; perhaps she’d come to be fearless and/ or to feel that she would survive anything. I met her a book festival in (I think 2005), when we shared a stage for a PEN event. She seemed like a lovely woman whose account on stage brought tears to the eyes of her translator, a veritable and mature British academic.
At another book festival (I know I sound like a luvvie!), Tarun Tejan, Editor of Tehelka (whistle-blowing Indian newspaper), who sent a journalist undercover posing as an arms-dealer to expose the Bofors Scandal, an act which ultimately helped to bring down the right-wing Hindu fundamentalist BJP Government, recalled the year-long period during which he had to be under 24-hour armed guard.
He said that at first he spent a lot of time understandably in abject fear; after all, he was up against the arms lobby, the Swedish Govt., the Indian Govt. and the Indian (Hindu) religious extremists; but that one day, he thought, “Well, the worst that can happen is that someone will come into the office and put a bullet in my head. After I’d come to that realisation, it was easy”.
One can only salute such people, and marvel.
anonymous above was me.
“You don’t remember telling me that people had died from cutting one ulnar artery and when I asked you where those reports were you had nothing?”
I told you my source and posted it. I asked you where your source was that said death from a cut ulnar artery was impossible was and you came up with nothing. In fact, I think you said something along the lines of “Look for it yourself!”
Funny Dreiloin.
“You don’t remember the discussion about how there were 20+ tablets missing but the post mortem found that he had only ingested a normal dose, i.e. one or two??”
Where’s your source?
“In David Kelly’s case there is hugely compelling evidence (if not completely conclusive according to some) that he killed himself”
–angry
Bullshit! Have you ever seen anyone having an angiogram? Both femoral arteries open, for the use of a camera and the injection of dye up and into the heart. What do the docs do afterwards? They allow these femoral arteries to close up, with the aid of doctors’ fists shoved hard into the groin. No stitches or clamps. That is what arteries do.
And that is what the very tiny ulnar artery does when severed. How did Kelly bleed out from that?? And since when do clots soak into the ground? Was all of his blood up his sleeve?
And how come it was said originally that his coronary arteries were in much the shape that would be expected for any man of his age, and now suddenly he had one or two blocked 80%? Suddenly I don’t trust Hunt.
“I told you my source and posted it.”
Yes, Angry, and it didn’t fit. It wasn’t ONE severed ulnar artery. You were trying to be smart.
“Where’s your source?”
Go to hell, Angry, I’m not re-doing a debate with you that was finished long ago.
“Bullshit!”
No, not “bullshit!” I did tell you before that you can be needlessly petulant. I think your response to that was “Bullshit!” But it is the truth and you continue to be petulant.
“Yes, Angry, and it didn’t fit. It wasn’t ONE severed ulnar artery. You were trying to be smart.”
No, I posted a source. It’s up to you to decide if it is believable. I don’t care either way but I am not lying about what the source said:
“However, according to the National Statistician and Registrar General there are other recorded cases of death being caused by a severed ulnar artery, two in 2001, one in 2002, and one in 2004.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/conspiracy_files/6378681.stm#3
Note, the source I am quoting says there are other recorded cases of death being caused by A severed ulnar artery. This is what I said and I backed it up. Now stop lying about me and I might stop telling the truth about you.
On the tablets, you say, “You don’t remember the discussion about how there were 20+ tablets missing but the post mortem found that he had only ingested a normal dose, i.e. one or two??”
Yet the toxicologist (what does he know) disagrees with you:
“But the toxicologist who gave evidence to the Hutton Inquiry could not be definitive about how many tablets were taken.
Tests the toxicologist carried out suggested it was an overdose, and that Dr Kelly had 10 times more than a typical medical dose of co-proxamol. But he also said that the concentrations of the constituents of co-proxamol found in Dr Kelly were less than is usually fatal.”
The dose wasn’t usually considered to be fatal but it was not the “normal dose” at all.
On the heart condition, I know you have said, over and over again that there was no problem with his heart and you haven’t provided any thing but your say so on that one either but here is Dr Hunt at the Hutton inquiry:
“It was noted that he has a significant degree of coronary artery disease and this may have played some small part in the rapidity of death but not the major part in the cause of death”
This is completely contrary to your claim:
“And how come it was said originally that his coronary arteries were in much the shape that would be expected for any man of his age”
So it appears that you are the one who is untrustworthy. You completely misrepresent and at the same time blithely accuse Dr Hunt of some kind of conspiracy.
“No, I posted a source.”
“This is what I said and I backed it up.”
What source did you give? The BBC one above? Give me a link to the thread please.
Because it doesn’t appear to be this one
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/david_kellys_mu.html
OK, let’s say it was proved he was murdered. What does one conclude?
Let’s say it was proved that he wasn’t. What does one conclude?
INTELLIGENCE INSIDER ALLEGES CSIS USES SOMETHING SIMILAR TO ZERZETSEN IN CANADA
Talking about conspiracies… Under the following Indymedia URL is a rather interesting story. It is by a writer asking Indymedia to withdraw several articles he published earlier in April, because his employer is threatening to fire him if he doesn’t remove the Articles. What is interesting is that he is a self professed “Intelligence Analyst” who allegedly works for the Canadian Government, and the withdrawn articles have headlines such as – “CSIS abuse”- and – “In the event of my death … life under CSIS rule.” As most of you know, CSIS is Canada’s equivalent of MI5, and adopts similar methods.
The 3 articles seem to appear and disappear from Indymedia, perhaps indicative of an intelligence operation – I have Adobe PDF copies of them all. As of this morning, some of it appears under this URL:
http://publish.indymedia.org/en/2010/04/937189.shtlm
What the withdrawn articles alleged is that CSIS practices torture in Canada against innocent citizens – The writer alleges that CSIS regularly uses what they call “D & D” tactics (apparently their name for Zerzetsen) to persecute perceived enemies (of CSIS, whistleblowers, former mistresses of top politicians (apparently called “bimbo control”), etc) in Canada, and that amongst those being victimized by CSIS are himself and his wife. And, of course, if asked, allegedly CSIS and Canadian Law Enforcement go into cover-up conspiracy mode. My interest is that all these allegations are remarkably similar to what I have experienced myself, and been complaining about for years – except that unlike this complainant, I am not alleging that I am a 25 year intelligence insider in the Canadian government.
Do I know for certain if his allegations are true? No, I don’t know for certain. Either way it is an important story. But, it does appear to me from the retraction, that rather than prosecute on these allegations, the Canadian Government and CSIS are going into cover-up-mode.
Indeed the same gentleman has also contacted the Canadian press with the same story, but in much more detail than the original articles published in Indymedia. A journalist, who believes his allegations, sent me a copy of what the press have received, and I spoke on the phone to the gentleman himself for over an hour. What was even more interesting to me was that the information sent to the press alleges some involvement in all this by a very prominent Canadian, which, if true, would suggest to me why these issues (including my own) are being covered-up. Will the press publish the story, or will the story be that the press have been censored yet again?
er, yes, Roderick. Could you not just link to your own website when you have a new piece to write?
sorry didn’t mean to sound rude. ignore me.
Thanks to Julian Assange and a well deserved award indeed.
May he keep safe for the next few weeks until he releases the really crucial evidence.
Kelly facts and time line clashes and why is it nhecessary to make this a 70 year secret?
I do not buy the family protective argument whenb they already have been dragged through the media by this.
With this I leave you for another two weeks of blissfull ignorance of media, computers, TV or Radio.
Angry,
None of what I’m talking about (and did talk about) seems to appear on the thread entitled ‘David Kelly’s Murder’.
I’d like a link to the relevant thread, please, and to know what source you gave at the time for your “one ulnar artery” claim.