Today’s Guardian editorial quotes directly from my speech at the Ecuadorean Embassy, in a sneering way:
their remarks concerned western Europe’s “neocon juntas”
The Guardian editorial makes the direct claim that I, and the other speakers, omitted all mention of the sexual allegations against Julian Assange in Sweden. That is a direct lie by the Guardian. In fact over half my speech – 23 sentences to be precise – were dedicated to the allegations against Assange and putting them in the context of the irrefutable evidence of the serial use of such allegations against various whistleblowers, including myself, in order to damage their reputation and brand them as criminals unconnected to whistleblowing.
Despite quoting my speech in its editorial, and mentioning it three times in its liveblog of the rally, the Guardian at no stage made any attempt to indicate the gist of what I actually said. Even the New York Times, without giving any of my explanation, at least got the point when it reported that:
a former British diplomat, Craig Murray, asserted that Mr. Assange had been “fitted up with criminal offenses” as a pretext
Of course the Guardian did not overlook what the NYT picked up. You could not overlook all 23 sentences of it. But simply the Guardian wished to run an editorial arguing that the Swedish allegations had been completely ignored. The facts did not suit Rusbridger’s comment. So Rusbridger’s comment remained free and lies were sacred.
The Guardian’s shrill and vitriolic campaign against Assange is extraordinary in its ferocity, persistence and pointless repetition.. The sad truth is that its origins lie in the frustration of the Guardian’s hopes to make a great deal of cash from involvement in Assange’s putative memoirs. That such a once great paper should fall sway to such a mean-minded little neo-con lickspittle as Rusbridger and his Blair supporting coterie is a great tragedy.
This is what, contrary to Rusbridger’s lies, I actually said:
Anybody with time and patience might like to keep posting links to it under the Guardian editorial once they open comments on it tomorrow morning.
I posted a response to the Guardian editorial piece. My original post went up on page 1 at roughly 9:15am. It was up for about 2 hours and gained about 100 recommends. Suddenly it has been “disappeared”.
It said this:
“It might have been a rather more honest piece of reporting if you had taken the trouble to examine the case against Julian Assange rather more carefully. You might recall that Julian Assange did, in fact, make himself available to the Swedish prosecution from the beginning. He stayed in Sweden for 5 weeks waiting to be interrogated, and left Sweden after gaining permission to do so from the Swedish Prosecutor, Marianne Ny. If I recall correctly, he also offered to make himself available to the Swedish Prosecutors in this country (an offer that was not taken up) but refused to return to Sweden because of serious concerns that he might end up extradited to the US. Remember, there were groups in the US that were calling for his murder at this time.
As far as the case against Assange is concerned, the preliminary investigation into ’third degree rape’ was opened, dropped and then re-opened in quick succession over a space of ten days and there are serious worries about the way the case against Assange has been managed (or possibly stage-managed), including proof that one of the complainants destroyed evidence. The website justice4assange.com has more detail for those who are interested.”
The fact that this was censored by the Guardian absolutely astonished me. They have just lost a contributor.
Craig, I suspect you have gained a lot of new readers from the number of CIF responders who are linking you. Well done that man!
I stand corrected, N_. If so, my suggestion was void.
Strangely, when I licked your link, I got a malware warning, but the “Local” article looks clean.
Mary,
The D of E is an iguana. Just to clear up any confusion.
Wasp Box – I cannot imagine the criteria the Guardian applies when accepting “free” comment any more. The stench of buried bodies is becoming offensive there.
You have to admit, as well as obviously being a danger, there’s something quite comical about the current state of the western mainstream news media in general. Most of the articles and reports written or aired are so blatantly deceitful and propogandised that it has all become rather Monty Pythonesque.
The ‘special reports’ from war torn countries are hackneyd pieces of well practised nonsense – the reporters sounding like the indcotrinated drones that they have been trained to be.I’m always expecting to see Terry Jones and Eric Idle dressed as middle eastern women, doing those voices as they walk past reporters doing another profound piece to camera in another blown up town.
State news is a mixture of The Day Today and the Pink Panther, with copious amounts of 1984 thrown in. It carries on peddling its lies and agenda of fear but most people have stopped listening and go elsewhere for their news and information. In other words it has become a joke. In becoming a joke it has actually become an entertaining form of comedy farce for a lot of people, with double speak and propoganda becoming a form of entertainment akin to the ‘Where’s Wally’ books
To courtenay barnett: Would it not be logical to accept Assange’s offer to the Swedish authorities to be interviewed at the Ecuadorian Embassy as a first rational step in a criminal prosecution?
Would it be logical if every suspect makes offer to authority skips bail and seeks asylum from countries like ecuador, would it be logical if every authority tells victims “we are still waiting for the suspect to offer us offer,without suspect’s offer there will be no pursuit,” would it be logical if sweden’s legal system relies on the suspects to recgonize&grant their jurisdiction? “sir rapist, with all respect, do you have the generosity to grant a jurisdiction over this territory for us the poor sweden’ legal system?” “fuck off,get your ass to ecuador” would all those scenes be logical？
to courtenay barnett 1688 that one sees a development of jurisprudence over centuries and precedents and practice in support of journalistic freedoms and the broad right to freedom of expression evolving – the events surrounding Assange signifies an attempt to turn the clock back on freedom of expression. The US relied on the UK 1688 Bill of Rights and its principles to frame within the US Constitution – the First Amendment.
i thinks what you trying to say if people should have access to classified information,well according to the freedom of information which is endorsed by series of legislations, people do have the access to classified even secret informations, but there is a expiry date,you have emphasized multiple time that bad to set the clock backward,but i have to remind you, unfortunately setting the clock forward maybe also a bad option, because ,we set expiration time for classified informations for reasons such as safty, strategic advantage,preventing chaos,etc, lets us set a little moot, if mir,assange is surely good source of information of govermants, can i just steal mir assange for myself? can anyone steal mir assange for himself ? treat youself as a law abiding honest citizen not some selfserving high&mighty whistleblower.
to ex pat Today they are using an RPG on both feet daily. – Hiring a Neo-Con Nazi columnist for only of many, many examples.
talking about nazi please anwser those following questions, has mir assange done anyting wrong? what will you do if mir assange’s action caused harm to innocent people? do you think mir assange is pursuing the greater good that makes what ever sacrifies justified? do you think mir assange is higher above the law?
to Courtenay Barnett National Authorization Defense Act. President Obama signed it into law on the 13th December, 2011 and this piece of legislation goes a step further in compromising rights and bringing the US domestic legal situation into disrepute
1 guantanamo bay is not a gulag, prisoners there dont do any labor
2 does the terrorists respect other people’s human rights? is there any common points between terrorism and humanright ?
3 do you think the most effective way to protect the human rights of mass population is by guaranteeing terrorists with maxmium freedom
4 if there two curves ,one represent the freedom&humanright situation of terrorist the other represent the freedom&humanrights situation of the mass population, how do you think the correlation between those two curves ? do you think those two curves are going in the same direction ?
5 do you have any alternative opinions about how to handle the terrorist, please enlighten us with your analogously sagacious illusion, im looking forward to hear from you .
to bollinger bob ie to frame Libya (The two part documentary interviewed 3 experts including one ballistics expert and one forensic scientist who claim the bullet trajectory came from a neighboring building which housed some murky organisation. Without wanting to sound like a conspiracy theorist, the parallel obfuscations are all too apparent.
please provide your evidences to validate your points, something something apparent ,something something frame something something consparacy ,this just not working for me, how can i trust you better than those three experts with abundant of evidence logic backup and experience, why anyone choose to trust a dictator like kadafi over a democratic govt? once again evidence please .
to kingelisx The point is that publishing classified government data demonstrates the yawning gap between what Western governments proclaim themselves to be advancing: democracy, freedom, etc, and what they actually engage in: grubby realpolitik.
the publishment of classified information is not a sacred manner it has to follow a shollow and pedantic procedure it‘s due to the expiration time, that means we have to wait for the fruit to be fully developed ,as far as i concerned, the western countries never renounce the right to classify information , please anwser this question who told you that allow people to steal classifed information and breaching the idea of freedom of information by stomping on the expiry date
is the high way to ADVANCING DEMOCRACY ?who ? who? who? i personally take the realpolitik as a complement
1/ Julian Assange is not a government 2/ Julian Assange does not seek to create advantage by keeping information secret, and 3/ The original intrusion was undertaken by the US and its allies, shifting it into the public domain may constitute another form of intrusion, but it is motivated by idealistic aims.
1 julian and government should both obey the law ,just because julian is not govt so julian can do what he want ? no he cann’t julian has to obey the law, 2 julian certainly created no advantage from possessing those classified informations , the ecuador russian and venezuela are just more advancing democracies ,they just randomly lend hand to those people in hard time , 3 the us and its allies intrusions are abiding to the law ,what is more idealistic than the rule of the law ? please do take a idealistic measure toward tha law , i never know venezuela russia and ecuador are so in this idealistic thing ,maybe they are running out of polonium
This poorly phrased paragraph basically seeks to characterize Assange as having some radical view on privacy, but that governments should err on the side of transparency,
if assange has any points on privacy and freedom of information ,please picking on the country which has adoped the lowest standard of freedom of information and pricacy ,the sickest people are most craving for treatment, there is transparancy we can all count on , it follows the procedure it has a expiry date , please dont eer on this
we all part of society ,if your personal matters are not reflecting the human society , you better come to me ,i can grant you asylum
[Jon/Mod: reparagraphed and tidied a bit]
Hi Craig,
You mention Janis Karpinski and yourself as examples of whistleblowers who have been fitted up. Can you name some others? Thanks
Komodo,
Quite right about the BBC twix Guardian coverage – Bravo, a powerful post. My own contribution to Guardian comment attracted 8 recommends in 3 minutes, so we get a hint of public frustration and annoyance with main stream bias. I wrote:
A imperceptive and myopic editorial by the Guardian newspaper that attempts to persecute whistle-blowers in the same way as the charges brought against Julian Assange. By it’s own hand the Guardian has relegated it’s own standing as a creditable news provider to that of government doormat biased towards the establishment’s lies and deceit. The British press needs a neutral front-runner tabloid tuned to the 21st century and the wishes of an enlightened British public fed up with government lies and repeated attempts to obfuscate truth.
I agree we have the WWW for now.
Someone up there revelling in the new “space without
ENTER>fullstop>ENTER”
facility, I think.
Thanks, team!
September 23, 2004
.
“DECEPTIVE APPEARANCES”
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“An Exchange With The Guardian”
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http://www.medialens.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=352:deceptive-appearances&catid=18:alerts-2004&Itemid=41
@Bert: Thank you for your concern for accuracy. My memory is not, alas, perfect. Confronted with embarrassing correction by a helpful chap—so apparently & uncommonly acquainted with intimate details—I was beginning to fear just a little a letter from Messrs Sue, Grabbit & Run. What to do? Then I come across this: http://bit.ly/ezHXXg
The implication of Russia in Litivenko’s horrible death was on the basis of the use of Polonium, cast as somehow a uniquely or typically Russian method to an unthinking audience. It is now suspected that Arafat’s death was believed to have resulted from this same radioactive substance. There are similarities in the ring of police and ‘security’ surrounding the Ecuadorian embassy (which must surely be interfering with the normal operation of that and any neigbouring embassies) and the encirclement of Arafat’s home, but that is where the similarity ends, the Israeli protection of the ‘bought off’ Arafat was to protect him from Palestinian anger at his ultimate betrayal.
I abandoned CiF when they had a dire head-to-head with an earnest elderly Iranian gentleman and the neo-con Thatcherite drone turned arms dealer and mercenary recruiter Malcom Rifkind -Rifkind was on the backfoot and the comment and ridicule destroyed him, before the over-zealous Zionist shills clocked-on and retrospective moderation altered everything.
The Guardian’s leftist zenith was in the long-ago aftermath of the Peterloo Massacre and motivated probably by personal fear of the nearby angry mobs than principle. Things that were ‘once great’ often turn out to have been rotten through from the outset. I bet Simon Jenkins is STILL trying to rehabilitate Tony Blair’s reputation.
Alan Rusbridger’s editorial has his nuts crushed, with many comments more educated, factual and clued up than the editorial.
certain comments stand out with support for them in the hundreds. Can’t understand why they removed wasp box comments, at least two other opinions pointed to exactly the same facts and time line.
The Swedish prosecutor’s bending and fickle moves, her refusal to interview Julian when he was available in Sweden, the refusal to interview him at the embassy, all this does not forebode well for Ms. Ardin, the only woman who made a statement. Her case is clearly been undermined by her own prosecutor, if it is at all true.
Its gotta be a batch of honour being banned from the Guardian comments section, a sign that Rusbridgers Guardian is now operating as a sideshow to the ministry of truth.
Newspapers who employ apologists to murder like Josh Trevino and Melanie Phillips are to be shunned and condemned for it.
No wonder they are loosing money when Rusbridgers nuts are crushed by its new ME owners.
@hdonuts – that is one of the most confused contributions I’ve seen here in a while. In general it is better to make short points, with care taken over punctuation and paragraphing. Such attention can make the difference between a clearly-expressed view and a rambling essay.
You are in favour of holding people ad infinitum without legal due process? I am not, for any crime whatsoever.
Yes, The Snarkian is best left to its hypocrite muesli mouth-mealing NW middling media munchers. Always the celebrity gossip rants (disguised as “ironic”, naturally) in the top reads. Or, occasionally, some autopoietic navel-gazing news item about news. It will, as said above, eventually eat – and gag on – itself. Snarkian takes revenge on JA for him implying that it, the proud outpost of liberalism, may, shock horror, in fact be as gagged as the rest of Old Media. Same goes for Swedish main liberal newspaper Dagens Nyheter. Bunch of smug self-described radicals without a shred of tech savvy (but a solid mortgage), whose main editor decided against publishing the Danish Muhammad caricatures back in the day, citing not-news-value per se. Obsolete as are national states, so are national newspapers. They know this, ergo the hatred of the new definers cum executives of their own original mission.
Trevino’s position at the ‘Guardian’ should have been left unchanged. Then everyone could have seen for themselves that someone they were employing someone who should have been locked up for inciting murder.
.
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/guardians-trevino-only-way-mavi-marmara-killings-could-be-better-if-idf-drew
More on Trevino. I disagree with the last sentence. The Guardian is not liberal.
http://jelperman.wordpress.com/2012/08/17/guardian-hires-racist-creep-hilarity-ensues/
I posted the following comment on the editorial and it got deleted. I wonder why.
“The Guardian takes it as self-evident that the two women involved are keen to see Assange in court in Sweden. Is this Guardian editorial hot air or do they have a proper reason to believe that? In the case of Miss W, I think that it is far from clear. From available public evidence, the only reason she went to the police was to pressure Assange into taking an AIDS test. She was emotionally shaken when she heard Assange was facing rape allegations on her account and did not sign off on her interview statement. She could be jumping for joy to learn that her erstwhile hero has found a possible way to escape a prison cell next to Bradley Manning. If he were to end up in a US jail because of her statement, she might never be able to live with her conscience.”
Didn’t anyone remember this from the BBC on Dec 7 2010:
Mike Mukasey, George Bush’s last attorney general, appeared on the BBC tonight to join the chorus threatening action against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. The Guardian’s Owen Bowcott reports:
The former US Attorney General Michael Mukasey last night said that US lawyers should try and extradite Assange to the United States for betraying government secrets. “If I was still in charge there would have been an investigation,” he told BBC Newsnight, “it would have been done promptly.
“This is a crime of a very high order. Julian Assange has been leaking this information. He came into possession of it knowing that it was harmful.”
Mukasey also implied that the Swedish sex accusations may only be holding charge. “When one is accused of a very serious crime it’s common to hold him in respect of a lesser crime … while you assemble evidence of a second crime.”
Once again, Mukasey doesn’t say exactly what US law either WikiLeaks or Assange has broken. But if he’s right then we will find out soon enough.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2010/dec/07/wikileaks-us-embassy-cables-live-updates
Thank you for showing up the Guardian for the reactionary, fawning rag it has become. Twenty minutes on CIF shows how desperate the Guardian is to emulate the mainstream propaganda media of the USA. No once is surprised that the Independent went that way. Any newspaper that would employ someone like the uber-Blairite Rentoul, is bound to be reactionary. What is sad is that the last mainstream UK paper on the soft-left, the Glasgow Herald, has joined the smear chorus against Assange and swallowed the White House lies and deceptions that surround this case (the “we can invade” instructions Hague dutifully read out, are bound to be instructions from the US…just that day, a few hours earlier, a “Washington DC law professor” was saying on BBC world service, exactly what Hague repeated later).
I find this shift significant. When Obama illegally bombed Libya, the usual reactionary liberals fell over themselves to praise his acts, quoting extensively from Susan Rice’s propaganda script (impending Benghazi massacre, Gaddafi handing out viagra to soldiers to encourage them to rape etc). But there were some voices in the mainstream UK press that were not as convinced, and while none of the “liberal papers” actually condemned Obama (that would be too much to expect), there were some traces of independent comment.
Now there is a phalanx of condemnation for Assange and Ecuador. It doesnt matter whether you read the Daily Mail or the Guardian, the comments across what used to be a political spectrum are uniform in both substance and tenor. So is this the year when the left died in Britain ?
Well said Craig. I will follow this blog now and link the stuff you do with other places if and when. I’m sure Democracy Now would be interested in your work. You got much better coverage there today.
Excellent speech from Craig yesterday. Misreported by the Graun today, just as they misreport JA, who is mischevously accused of dodging ‘rape allegations’ when in fact he has offered to meet the Swedish prosecutors on neutral ground on several occasions.
‘It doesnt matter whether you read the Daily Mail or the Guardian, the comments across what used to be a political spectrum are uniform in both substance and tenor.’
Of course both organs are ostensibly miles apart in their political leanings, but if anything the Mail these days is more suspicious of Official Truths than the Guardian. The main difference is in who they perceive as the ‘victims’ of rapacious glabal capitalism. For the Mail it is the taxpayers of middle England, for the Guardian it is the designated victim groups of identity politics. Thus, a ‘rape allegation’ by definition transforms Assange from a defiant whistleblower into the perfect villain.
OldMark: In its own way, the Daily Mail is a non-disingenuous, highly reactionary paper that never seeks to disguise its intentions and positions. The Guardian is, in my estimation far more insidious, because it wears liberal colours but is so petrified of being thought sectarian, it ends up supporting the reactionary position, especially where the USA is involved. Tomasky is the perfect shill. In that sense it runs parallel with Labour, where the adoration of the US and its desire to please and conform, knows no bounds. There is still some skepticism left among the Tories. The only mainstream British paper that still does investigative journalism is the Telegraph. Of course it usually ends up parading its right-wing beliefs, but it is now a more measured and credible source of news than either the Guardian or the Independent. However they all stink and they are all becoming echo chambers for Establishment propaganda. In most things, Britain is becoming more and more like America by the day, more and more depraved.
It was such a relief to find this blog. I was beginning to think that rationality, common sense and honesty had left the building.
I too was appalled by the Guardian today, not that it is alone, with most of the other press following the same cheap hyperbole and fake concern for the alleged victims.
I have bookmarked and will follow with interest.
Guardian newspaper is no good, which newspaper can be trusted?
An excellent speech Craig…I have not seen you that mad for years…hope everything works out for Julian…the charges are a complete bloody fabrication as usual…by the way..nice tie mate !
The Guardian is so yucky. Utter crap. Rusbridger is the classic “useful idiot”. He has carved a totally inoffensive role for the Guardian while pretending to be critical of the United States. And the comments section is a disgrace. Just try any criticism of Israel and you are shown the red card. I can’t stand the DT’s ideology but at least they allow real debate in their comments although you have to wade through some of the most nauseating racist and Zionist outburts imaginable.
Actually, the Comments section of the Guardian did the people proud. Far more recommends for the reality than for the fiction. No wonder they closed it early.
Technicolour:
I am glad to hear that.
@DavidH: “…Assange should have published only the data that was incriminating – the Guantanamo Bay and air strikes stuff. Then he would have more of a claim to whistleblower status…”
Government of Tunisia was embarrassed by the revelation of the depths of corruption and US Government complicity in looking the other way. This element of the leaks of diplomatic cables was a major factor in the people of Tunisia rising up against their government. Better to have kept it a secret?