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168 thoughts on “Murray vs Aaronovitch on Assange”

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  • Mark Golding - Children of Iraq Association

    I agree Ken regrettably Craig was sandbagged. Without proof that a stratagem occurred, Julian and his lawyers must confront an unpleasant situation with resolution and assurance. The situation has summoned an emotive focus that is evolving as we speak as the media circus gathers momentum.

    Evidence appears from the strangest of places and the clincher here is I believe within reach of those willing to work hard to find it.

  • purple

    No offense, but everyone know their names, it’s everywhere on the web. Sweden dropped the case originally, and also, Assange has no history of assault at all. That is big tip off, he’s not a young guy and people who do this sort of thing generally don’t start in their 40’s. Just saying, it’s a least likely there is more going on here.

  • Ben Franklin

    Thanks for the link. I wish I hadn’t seen the buttfucking with Craig as ‘catcher’. 7 minutes?

    I smell a lot of rats.

  • purple

    But the simple argument is, of course there should be a trial, as long as there are guarantees against extradition to the rouge state of the U.S.

    Which would never happen. Because the idea is to transfer him from one jail to another, Sweden being the facilitator of torture rendition before.

  • technicolour

    Fwiw, thought Gavin Esler was, almost desperately at times, trying to give Craig Murray a platform, but the interview was wrongfooted from the start.

  • purple

    Another aspect of what is ‘really’ going on here is that Latin America is itching for the chance to humiliate a deflated empire. No one there watches or cares about Newsnight.

    Get used to being under the thumb of other people, or at least their equals. Your supercilious insults and verbiage isn’t going to impress the world in this century.

  • Jonangus Mackay

    Fevered response from Ms Smith, Esler & a chunk of the twittersphere to your admittedly incautious mention of Ms Ardin does, however, serve one purpose. It clearly demonstrates their ignorance even at this late date of central aspects of the scandal which so easily precipitates them into a froth. It’s clear indication all of them have yet to watch the detailed ABC investigation, most thorough, as far as I’m aware, thus far. Had they seen it, they wouldn’t have reacted the way they did:
    .
    http://t.co/SfN0g171
    .
    Have come to the conclusion that Rove or whoever’s brilliant condom stratagem (& I don’t doubt that at a personal level Brother Julian really is, sadly, somewhat of a sleazeback) has triggered seismic atavistic responses across contemporary culture, particularly in otherwise apparently rational women.
    .
    Polite forwarding of the above link some hours ago to someone called Emma Kennedy had the frightening effect of turning her into a jumping cracker of furious tweets. One of them—she later deleted it—significantly read, ‘Do not try to change my mind.’ I’d simply requested her to watch the ABC film & if poss. give me her response. Felt compelled to comply with instructions & scram, when she tweeted: ‘Just. Leave me. Alone.’
    .
    Turns out she works for the Guardian.

  • VivaEcuador

    J. Mackay:

    For what it is worth, I have been posting this video repeatedly on the Guardian CIF, the DT discussions and the FT debates. It is amazing to see the reaction from the Hang Assange High! lobby. Total silence. They just don’t want to hear about it.

    I asked them repeatedly – did you watch it? Silence. They prefer the taste of sand in their mouths.

    I crossed swords with a twerp called Woop on the FT. He kept referring to “RAPE allegations” and said anyone who supported Assange was a freak. So I asked him finally:

    Why do you refer to “RAPE allegations” instead of “rape ALLEGATIONS”?

    No reply. They have no reply. Your Emma Kennedy’s reaction surprises me not one bit.

  • Cryptonym

    Cryptonym, I don’t think I can find the page again, but following an article to a source suggested that Andrea Davison went to an embassy in Ecuador rather than the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

    You might be right Clark though my re-call of it was that she failed to appear in court for sentencing on trumped up fraud charges, sought asylum in the London Embassy of Ecuador. Hence the suggestion in the links that in any raid on the Embassy she would be the target of arrest or assassination before Assange and is the cause of the threats made to Ecuador.

    With explosive issues such as her being a bio-weapons ‘expert’, a scion of the petty aristocracy; Camerons involvement in South African nukes sold for Tory party funds, then ‘stolen’ in Oman; close friend of Dr. David Kelly and Gareth Williams, took part in Iraq inspections etc etc. Some part of this must be verifiable, at the very least that she was a witness called before the Arms-to-Iraq Scott enquiry. I realise the whole thing could be disinformation and the blog writer obviously has an personal axe to grind with this elderly lady who might put most of nu-labour and many tory grandees behind bars –if she exists.

    What she needed before all her paperwork. computers etc. were seized would have been some sort of whistleblower outfit, such as wikileaks.

    Assange had friends in this country, like Lord Lucan he could have gone to ground indefinitely, but such a story could just as easily cover his ‘disappearance’ proper.

  • Chris Jones

    Esler and the neoliberal womans uppitiness when Craig Murray mentioned the Swedish womans name was quite an amusing Monty Python/The Day Today moment. You could almost feel them explode in indignant self righteous ecstacy at that point. ‘You vill not zay sis vord’ (apologies German people)Do these people understand what is actually happening in the real world and how it will affect them?

    I was slightly disapointed not to see Mark Urban lurking around with his magical pen though – maybe next time

  • VivaEcuador

    Chris:

    Quite so. And in fact they proved Craig’s point – we are not allowed to refer to the truth in today’s world of mass communications. We must pretend that we don’t know the name of the alleged victim. Ignorance is bliss etc…. What a charade.

  • Jonangus Mackay

    @Chris Jones: ‘I was slightly disapointed not to see Mark Urban lurking around with his magical pen though – maybe next time.’
    .
    Brilliant. Really did laugh out loud.

  • Chris2

    This is the innocent who together with other friends of the butchers of Fallujah, and of death squads around the world, the people who daily kill and mutilate women and children by the dozen is demanding that Assange (who has publicised the crimes of evil governments) be punished.

    Assange is on one side.
    His enemies are on the other, along with the CIA, MI6, and the authors of a million evil deeds, which they are intent upon concealing, which is why they want to make an example of Assange, just as every day they make “examples” of Trade Union organisers in Colombia, strikers in South Africa and shi’ites in Arabia

    “Anna Ardin (the official complainant) is often described by the media as a “leftist”. She has ties to the US-financed anti-Castro and anti-communist groups. She published her anti-Castro diatribes (see here and here) in the Swedish-language publication Revista de Asignaturas Cubanas put out by Misceláneas de Cuba. From Oslo, Professor Michael Seltzer points out that this periodical is the product of a well-financed anti-Castro organization in Sweden. He further notes that the group is connected with Union Liberal Cubana led by Carlos Alberto Montaner whose CIA ties were exposed here.

    “Quelle surprise, no? Shamir and Bennett went on to write about Ardin’s history in Cuba with a US funded group openly supported by a real terrorist: Luis Posada Carriles.

    “In Cuba she interacted with the feminist anti-Castro group Las damas de blanco (the Ladies in White). This group receives US government funds and the convicted anti-communist terrorist Luis Posada Carriles is a friend and supporter. Wikipedia quotes Hebe de Bonafini, president of the Argentine Madres de Plaza de Mayo as saying that “the so-called Ladies in White defend the terrorism of the United States.”

    “Who is Luis Posada Carriles? He’s a mass murderer, and former CIA agent. . . .

    “Luis Clemente Faustino Posada Carriles (born February 15, 1928) (nicknamed Bambi by some Cuban exiles)[1] is a Cuban-born Venezuelan anti-communist extremist. A former Central Intelligence Agency agent,[2] Posada has been convicted in absentia of involvement in various terrorist attacks and plots in the Americas, including: involvement in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed seventy-three people;[3][4] admitted involvement in a string of bombings in 1997 targeting fashionable Cuban hotels and nightspots;[5][6][7] involvement in the Bay of Pigs invasion; [and] involvement in the Iran-Contra affair…

    “Luis Posada Carriles is so evil that even the Bush administration” (pretended that it) “wanted him behind bars:

    “In 2005, Posada was held by U.S. authorities in Texas on the charge of illegal presence on national territory before the charges were dismissed on May 8, 2007. On September 28, 2005 a U.S. immigration judge ruled that Posada cannot be deported, finding that he faces the threat of torture in Venezuela.[11] His release on bail on April 19, 2007 had elicited angry reactions from the Cuban and Venezuelan governments.[12] The U.S. Justice Department had urged the court to keep him in jail because he was “an admitted mastermind of terrorist plots and attacks”, a flight risk and a danger to the community.[7]

    “Who is Julian Assange’s chief accuser in Sweden? She’s a gender equity officer at Uppsula University – who chose to associate with a US funded group openly supported by a convicted terrorist and mass murderer. She just happens to have her work published by a very well funded group connected with Union Liberal Cubana – whose leader, Carlos Alberto Montaner, in turn just happened to pop up on right wing Colombian TV a few hours after the right-wing coup in Honduras. Where he joined the leader of the failed coup in Ecuador to savage Correa, the target of the coup. Montnaner also just happened to vociferously support the violent coup in Honduras, and chose to show up to sing the praises of the Honduran junta. Jean-Guy Allard, a retired Canadian journalist who now writes for Cuba’s Gramma, captured the moment..”

  • craig Post author

    I was less depressed by Newsnight than my readers. I found the pretence we don’t know who Anna Ardin is risible. And I thought the obvious attempts to cut me off every time I got going were very off-putting to many. There was never any chance of discomfiting the political correctness of Smith and Essler (who are both perfectly nice people) but the seed that there is another way of thinking will have been planted.

  • Gawain

    @Craig

    I strongly disagree.

    Like many of his ilk, Esler is a neocon flag-waver. He lambasts anyone showing the slightest pretence of being ‘to the left’ so-to-speak, and positively lavishes praise on the most loathsome warmongers in the western military alliance. The man was obviously out to get you in this particular interview. I suggest you re-watch it carefully and observe how he positively salivates when you mention Ardin’s name. You were outgunned by two corporate hacks desperate to maintain the same old fetid mainstream consensus. They were looking for anything that would prevent you from following your line of thought.

    Esler is a dispicable piece of work.

  • Emily

    As a woman, I thought Joan Smith was appalling. She even said “how dare you name a rape victim.” Funny, I didn’t know he’d even been charged let alone sentenced.

    I have complained to PEN that she is using their name to make herself seem some kind of human rights champion, when she is clearly another instrument to get Assange carted off.

  • Anon (blue)

    https://twitter.com/jetsetjournoBBC

    2h Aaron BBC Journo Aaron BBC Journo ‏@jetsetjournoBBC

    @polblonde I understand! There’s never a way of telling how a live discussion will go! You argued your case very compellingly nevertheless
    Details
    2h Aaron BBC Journo Aaron BBC Journo ‏@jetsetjournoBBC

    @polblonde Thanks for coming on tonight Joan – it was a great & lively debate!
    Details

  • Clark

    Chris2 and others, if you find informative and well referenced articles like the one above, do link to them. It has numerous benefits. It enables people to pass the information on, complete with the links that form its evidence, and linking helps move the linked articles up in the search engine rankings.

  • chickens, roost

    Oh, please do sling that mud, the bigger the stink, the better. Assange can only be rendered in secret. If the US government shows its hand with a formal extradition request, non-refoulement stops the process cold. States may not rely on diplomatic assurances from a state like the USA that tortures. Proof of official impunity for torture comes back to bite the US in the ass, resulting in international disgrace that might even penetrate the thick skulls of the US population. Check and mate.

  • VivaEcuador

    Craig:

    It just goes to show how far the BBC has sunk and/or how they take their viewers for idiots if their interviewers feel the need to suppress information that the whole world already knows.

  • Clark

    Common argument: “Assange has not been charged, and is only wanted for questioning”

    Me on 20th 11:55 PM above: “apparently the Swedish system works in a different way than we’re used to, and suspects can’t be charged until they’ve been taken into custody, which is what the (second) Swedish prosecutor wants Assange in Sweden for.”

    http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/david-allen-green/2012/08/legal-myths-about-assange-extradition

    (Link originally posted above by Amk, 20 Aug 6:30 pm.)

    I do not agree much with the article, but I have also read elsewhere that legal procedure in Sweden involves arrest before charging, and it’s important to engage with the facts rather than falsehoods. If other readers know this area of Swedish procedures, please comment.

  • Courtenay Barnett

    @ Craig,

    They blocked you and intervened to do two things:-

    1. Through you off your train of thought; and
    2. Set up Aunt Sallys that you were not permitted time to knock down ( which you want to do)

    It is your personality – you are a gentleman. Now – ‘ol George Galloway would have been in his element.

    Anyway – as one commnetator said:-

    ” Essler is a pig. I love the way he and the witch sitting next to Craig got all uppity when Craig mentioned Anna Ardin’s name which is known to everyone. Craig, I admire your dignity but that was the time you should have lost your temper. You broke no laws and Essler’s behaviour was typical of the BBC mafia that think THEY are the story, not the interviewee.”

    And if Murray said “AA” or even ‘A” then he would still have been chided for giving too much of a hint about what half the world already knows. Feigned indignation that only works for minds that are not in the debate game.
    CB

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