As of today Julian Assange has finished his jail sentence for missing police bail. There is no Swedish charge or request for his extradition, those risibly flimsy sexual allegations no longer being needed by the state.
As of today, Julian Assange is in prison purely and simply for publishing secrets of the US state, revealing war crimes and the dirtiest of diplomacy. I should like to dedicate this post to all of those in the title and dozens of their colleagues in the British “liberal” establishment, all of whom claimed that Julian’s fears of being incarcerated in the UK or Europe facing extradition for publishing US secrets were entirely bogus and a mere pretext for hiding, and that this would never happen. Those of us who said this was a real fear and a real danger were, myself most definitely included, derided as fantasist, deluded, paranoid and conspiracy theorist.
So now Julian is a political prisoner, a journalist in a maximum security prison, probably for years, waiting for his case to be heard and extradition faced for the grievous crime of doing his job and publishing. While the British liberal establishment simply buries its nose in its perfumed handkerchief and pretends that the fear it derided as imaginary, has not come true.
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A timely message. Thanks, Craig, for your sterling work. I don’t agree with you on every issue, but on most, including the Assange case, you are spot on.
Glad I didn’t bother buying it today, despite considering doing so. Never will again either. Nick Cohen put me off, 16 years ago, and that’s when I stopped faithfully buying it, when the Observer championed the Iraq invasion.
Didn’t miss much. On the internet version, it was all about the Labour Blair/Likud factions attacking the evil Corbyn at the party conference. Quite predictable.
A shorter title for this article would be “Beneath Contempt”, but I see that title is already taken.
I was thinking the same thing … a mighty sober comment if I may say so.
Brother Craig Murray,
( now that is a very high salutation coming from one such as myself – and I do mean it – my brother in spirit and in principles).
Here I share the little that I can ( have) done/do.
https://www.transcend.org/tms/2019/04/assange-a-dangerous-precedent/
Good work, Craig.
Unlike the rat-bag of dedicatees (I mis-typed “deficatees”, which is possibly more appropriate).
Sickening Torture of an Innocent Truth Teller.
Julian’s Dad was on Gorge Galloway’s Show last Sunday.. I think it was a bit Emotional towards the end –
From around 33 mins in –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdvgP11xpSs
“it’s very clear – British courts are answering to the US government & not their own standards”
https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/11344697
I think the reason behind Russiagate is clear, & it’s not opposition to Russia it’s controlling the domestic US population. & it helps Putin justify (not without some legitimacy) his own authoritarianism. & imo many will actually admit they like Putin.
As julian said, this is for domestic consumption. ….Like here, the US government knows their enemy, it’s the American people.
“Russiagate” (and whole Mueller inquiry) was also to obfuscate the real scandal, which is how Hillarious Clinton stitched up the nomination and subverted the democratic primary process.
I believe you are correct, but the West’s demonisation of Putin is I think a broader issue.
In a previous comment I said that there seems to be some “great game” by the US and UK against Russia. Make no mistake this also about corporate interests and Russia’s huge resources (especially against the background of climate change). The huge Western multi-nationals would love to get their hands on them. Putin has many flaws, but he does at least stand up for Russian interests (unlike that drunken sell-out Yeltsin).
Interestingly, Putin is far less demonised in the continental European press. Polls have shown Europeans seeing Trump as a greater danger than Putin.
I think the changing point was when Russia joined France and Germany in opposing the illegal invasion of Iraq.
“imo many will actually admit they like Putin”
– I don’t follow you Ishmael. Many Americans or many Russians? And how does Russiagate help justify Putin’s alleged authoritarianism?
What is not in doubt is that many Russians like Putin.
As he represents them and no-one else, what America and the UK think about him is entirely irrelevant.
I certainly have a very, very long list of Americans put to death if US foreign policy standards were applied in a bloody sponsored coup d’etat in the USA.
Mike Pompeo would not even get to court. Nor would John Bolton. Wall Street would be obliterated in ‘Operation Shock N Awe’ as would Hollywood, every major CIA and NSA installation, Capitol Hill, much of the millionaires playground of Long Island and the utterly genocidal pseudoacademic campuses of Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Columbia.
But that makes me a terrorist, as me ‘doing unto the USA what the USA has done to others’ is no longer one of the Ten Commandments.
Does not fit neoliberal playbooks, the Bible…..
“British courts are answering to the US government & not their own standards”
– Do the British courts have any standards these days Ishmael?
This is exactly what is needed — name and shame the hypocrites and cowards. Well done.
The time for speeches and poetry is over. Time to get down and dirty in the trenches with these shills.
David Aaronovitch in particular, a monster who actually supported the Iraq war whilst maintaining the pose of a forward thinking progressive;
“If nothing is eventually found, I – as a supporter of the war – will never believe another thing that I am told by our government, or that of the US ever again…”
How did that work out? Straight back to your shill day-job, pumping out convoluted crap on behalf of the man. Call yourself a journalist?
It would cost these people nothing to throw Assange a bone or two. Zilch.
Aaronovitch, Cohen etc were all disciples of Christopher Hitchens. When he leapt to the neocon side they all followed. Ironically, the main winners of the Iraq war were the Iranians, and the fallout continues to this day.
Even so, they all believed – like Tony Blair – they were right, and still do.
One can argue that the war liberated the Shia and raised their status across the region, though of course, they now find themselves in the crosshairs for that.
It is possible to argue that the disastrous Iraq campaign has had quite a few positive outcomes, though not the type those mentioned by Craig Murray will have wished for.
Liberated the Shia, but where? Nobody argued for the Iraq war on the basis it would liberate the Shia. And anyone who knows a thing about post-annihilation Iraq knows that the US has done everything possible to block the Shia in politics.
I can’t guess what or who motivated Hitchens to destroy his reputation as he did on Iraq and the war on terror. Whatever it was, it had a lot of gravity. I guess we will never know.
Talking about the positive affects of an illegal war that killed upwards of a million is scandalous. Not that anyone really cares what a dunderhead on here attempts to communicate with a few poorly constructed sentences.
The list of monstrous Tartuffe at the heading of this article hides the fact that everyone of the said miscreants have time and again helped to promote; mass murder, torture, extra judicial incarceration. The injustice of holding a man without any charges, having already forced the same man into serving a seven-year sentence; Julian being on the run, cooped up in a room in an embassy. This is the stuff of Kafka, that no longer is being mentioned in any of the universities. Gone the heady days of Kafka being taught in any of the higher education centres. He is an all too real allusion to the zietgiest.
At least in the Trial the suspect was allowed to live in the community, whilst Julian is being held in a maximum security prison.
“Julian is being held in a maximum security prison.”
– presumably they are trying to argue that he is a flight risk.
The UK is the only Western ‘Democracy’ where judges spring ‘preemptive hearings’ upon detainees.
Quite a novelty.
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Done!
Ditto.
I’m afraid to point out that hypocrisy, deceit, fraud and other character traits once frowned upon are now considered a virtue when party or personal loyalty reigns supreme.
It makes one look at MLK’s statement on the value of people differently…….. “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”.
The character differences in “the best” and “the worst” is now negligible. In fact, we now openly put the truth tellers in jail and the deceitful in positions of power and wealth?
It’s appalling James, I agree.
MLKjr’s speech is incredible. I have listened to it many times:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I47Y6VHc3Ms
…and he gave it many times, with only minor changes.
Appendix 2 to Courtney Barnett’s articĺe suggests to me that the U.S. regards itself as owner of the UK in the same way that it regards itself as the owner of Iraq. In other words the dignity of the owner shall always be maintained over thenatural justice rights of the ßlave.
This is why the UK government is agreeing so readily to encarxerate Assange illegally as it also agreed so readily to torture rendition by Bush.
The conclusion I draw from Barnets example from 1899 discarde law is that the US instigsted two world wars sgainst Britain to destroy her empire.. Since we now know from Cameron that ex US citizen PM Johnson is not enraged by EU federal power like other Good Tories maybe EU federalism is a third attempt by the U.S. to shaft Britain’s power.
That makes Assange a national hero for spiking our enemy the US on its war crimes. Al politics is about changing bums on seats of political power and always done with just slogans.
The new incumbents of world hegemony were far worse morally than the indignant Pilgrim Fathers protested about us all that time ago.
And maybe China will be worse still.
Instigsted
Since you see fit to draw attention to one of your typos:
…rights of the ßlave
…encarxerate
…discarde law
…sgainst Britain
…Al politics
Beyond a certain point, the reader is drawn to wonder, even when a point is correctly expressed, whether it really says what the author meant. If there are more sentences with mistakes than sentences without, then perhaps they all have mistakes in. Eventually the effort of reading prose that is full of mistakes becomes overwhelming, and one gives up trying to extract meaning, and moves on to the next comment.
In other words, it is a courtesy to your readers to spell-check if you are not sure of your spelling, etc.; or put differently, it is rude and inconsiderate to publish lazily-written comments.
Jimmeh
Yes. I’m squinting at type that would embarrass the T & C s of a bank and one only sees perpheral vision and at 3 in the morning the other one not at its best.
Autospell hates original thought and vocab and processes it to a different word from the one typed.
Full apologies. But firing up the desktop would wake up the wife.
Thanks for fair comment.
Post comment. Sheer laziness.
If I take by “the US” the Deep State/Elite that really runs things, and which tells Presidents what to do instead of the other way around, then yes, I agree with you. You can tell if “the US” thinks they own you or not. If they don’t think they own you, then you see bombs and cruise missiles with 1000lb high explosive warheads hitting all around you. And you’d probably be personally under sanctions by now, or at least the company that you used to work for, since the new motto of the US Treasury is “Sanction Everyone!”. Its easy to tell when “the US” doesn’t think they own you compared to when they do.
“U.S. regards itself as owner of the UK in the same way that it regards itself as the owner of Iraq.”
I think the US more or less regards itself as the “owner” of the entire world. There’s certainly no country which it deems to be a no-go area for it’s military, though it dare not attack countries that are armed with nuclear weapons.
The US generally prefers to target poverty stricken countries.
To quote Samantha Power from a chat on Radio 2 (yes, very challenging discussion (not)…on the Steve Wright Show) maybe 3 years ago:
“It is impossible to imagine a WORLD [my emphasis] in which the US doesn’t take the lead.” Succinctly sums up the US’s approach to world affairs.
Poor bastard will likely die in jail as a warning to anyone else. The US case is probably pretty flimsy so that would be their preferred outcome.
I disagree, I think Julian is more use to the UK authorities alive than dead.
The flimsiness of the US case is not really the issue. The issue is that the US wants Julian and the UK government wants to please the US.
Well said. These tools of the establishment need to be called out.
They cannot support Julian Assange anymore as they sold their souls to GCHQ\5 Ayes. That journalist published their dirty laundry on spying on their own populations.
Examples have to be set for publishers.
Exactly. They for once did their job, & now they have gone back to their proper place as good for nothing sycophants to state control. A role they play a critical part in maintaining.
& this is what also bugs me about Novara Media, & they even still claim they are otherwise. They want the power/infuence but act with the same utter irresponsibility when it comes to informing the public on these crucial matters, leaving it to the usual suspects, (spooks), to inform them. A narrative they contest in no way whatsoever when it comes to Julian…
I guess i should just face it. They are really about what they are actually doing in reality, trying to secure nice London properties for themselves. If thats on the dead body of a brave journalist, that’s FINE by them.
Well said.
Not forgetting Kamm and the like elsewhere in the British ”media’.
https://mobile.twitter.com/oliverkamm/status/1007645236724731904
The truth is they *are* all liberals, every one of them. Three hundred years of history show us it is not a designation of honour.
Has Corbyn taken a position on Assange’s case? I haven’t seen anything.
He made a tweet or two, making it clear enough what this is actually about. Far more than most.
In April Corbyn said that Julian should not be extradited to the US:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-4790483
I don’t know if his position has changed.
If I may, Your missing a few off that establishment list Craig. Namely almost every single member of the SNP, who have considerable influence yet keep entirely silent on this issue.
Ahh yes, the brave ” Scottish” would never stand by while such blatant injustice by the British state is apparent.
Much as it pains me, I am afraid I have to agree with you.
Since Nicola Sturgeon took over, the SNP has become unrecognisable and seems to have aligned itself with the British state.
Don’t tar all Scots with the same brush.
Or indeed “every single member”.
As one I am deeply concerned by the way the hierarchy have been taken over as far as foreign policy is concerned – most of them would be right at home in the Henry Jackson Society!
“Don’t tar all Scots with the same brush.”
Of course, ..I actually don’t have much regard for such generalisations, hence the quotation marks.
& make no mistake, I find no joy to say that about the SNP.
And Nigel Farage, who visited Assange several times in the embassy on a “private visit”. Where are you now Nigel? Are you afraid Trump won’t want you licking his bum any more?
Farage was there as a presenter for LBC radio and the meeting was attended by his producer
https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/nigel-farage/nigel-farage-tells-truth-about-meeting-assange/
“Trump, Assange, Bannon and Farage are bound together in an unholy alliance” screams an Observer headline today [2017].”
“The newspaper [Cadwalladr] asserts Nigel Farage has been acting as a courier between the American president and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, holed up in London’s Ecuadorian embassy. The LBC presenter [said] that he not part of a grand conspiracy and explained what happened when he met Assange. The meeting was actually facilitated by LBC, and as such was attended by Nigel Farage’s producer Christian Mitchell.”
He told the German newspaper Die Zeit that it had been a “private visit” (In a 2017 interview). But if what you say is correct, then Farage was truthful in saying at first that it was “journalistic reasons”.
ZEIT ONLINE: So you were sent by someone to speak to Julian Assange? What did you talk about?
Farage: It has nothing to do with you. It was a private meeting.
ZEIT ONLINE: You just said it was a journalistic meeting, for the public.
Farage: Of course.
ZEIT ONLINE: Are you going to publish an article soon about your connections to WikiLeaks and your meeting with Assange?
Farage: You will have to wait and see. I meet lots of people all over the world. I always help them.
https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2017-05/nigel-farage-brexit-ukip-russia-contacts
Well I don’t know how reliable a source Die Zeit is, but presumably it would be very easy to verify with LBC radio that it was they who organised the meeting and that Farage’s producer was present.
Farage is an irrelevance here.
I reserve the most contempt for the Guardian, and most of its naive readers who somehow believe it is a liberal newspaper and interested in decent wealth distribution, publishing freedom and a civilised world. Never forget that the Guardian started out as a supporter and friend of Assange, until it threw a tantrum because Assange refused to offer it an exclusive, and turned tables. This, and its resumption of anti-Corbyn slagoff pieces and crypto Blairite PR, makes it the most dishonestly duplicitous rag in the country.
Where’s Martinned? He assured us this wouldn’t happen? We must all be wrong still??????
Is anybody going to challenge it, some legal appeal or something like they’re so keen to do with Brexit? There must be grounds for challenging a decision to keep a man imprisoned without charge, so where is his legal team on this?
The other thing for me is that Julian recieves visitors, but there’s an absolute dearth of information regarding him, his treatment and conditions in prison and in fact, a dearth of words from his mouth.
What’s the story? There’s something not sitting quite right with me regarding this whole affair, something that we don’t know.
Thanks, Craig, for this public outing of those who got it so wrong, either because they’re crap journalists or crap politicians. It’s long overdue, but well timed anyway.
“The role of the liberal media is to create the illusion of choice where there is none”. Chomsky – close enough.
The Guardian has long maintained a neoconservative view abroad and a neoliberal one at home – a pillar of the status quo that allowed just enough dissent for it to affect liberal credentials, always belied when subject to any meaningful test, like regime change in Libya, or criticism of the Israeli government. Under Viner, that veil, flimsy as it was, has fallen. Almost all dissent is now suppressed. The Guardian now has no claim to being anything other than a tool of the state – particularly the intelligence services – other than identity politics and the boutique activism of Hadley Freeman. Assange is one of the most important journalists in its history, and one of the most courageous. These people have no right to claim that they belong to the same profession.
Indeed, as exposed by Kennard and Curtis recently:
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-09-11-how-the-uk-security-services-neutralised-the-countrys-leading-liberal-newspaper/
It’s important that people start to publicly draw attention to the Assange case. That means asking political leaders, their MPs, MSPs, journalists, and even celebrities, ask them what their stance is on Assange being held as a political prisoner… Twitter, email, snail mail, whatever suits.
Wikileaks published evidence of crimes. It doesn’t matter how that evidence was acquired. Where is freedom of the press? No newspaper or publisher of secrets has ever been put on trial in the US — the US should be proud of that, and that’s the argument here.
Putting Assange on trial is the equivalent of putting the editor of the Washington Post on trial for the Watergate revelations.
No newspaper or publisher of secrets has ever been put on trial in the US
This is why they are trying to make Assange complicit in the “theft” of the documents themselves. This is the reason why they had to concoct a flimsy story based on a just a few lines of an unverified chat log that Assange “entered into an illegal agreement” with Manning to hack the MD5 hash code of a password. (Strangely, after Manning had already provided “hundreds of thousands” of classified documents to Wikileaks already.)
Anybody can see this is about revenge and making an example of Assange. The UK establishment and press (especially the treacherous Guardian) are actively complicit in Assange’s political persecution.
The establishment can’t have people going about publishing the truth now can they?
Agree Craig
Thanks for this article Craig, it simply shows how corrupt our legal system is.
I would suggest that Julian Assange is the Nelson Mandela of our time, and we should be ashamed that in so called democracies, people such as Mandela and Assange are imprisoned simply for highlighting and standing against the deplorable behaviour of the state.
Is anyone prepared to admit that Brexit killed Thomas Cook?
On BBC Radio 4 all they’re talking about is a Dunkirk like operation to bring holidaymakers home to roost — nobody is talking about the Brexit chickens coming home to roost.
The meltdown of the U.K. economy has begun.
PS Brexit hasn’t happened yet. 31.10.2019 is the date.
This is just a rehearsal.
Rubbish. This has been brewing since around 2011. Brexit hasn’t even happened and in all likelihood is not in any meaningful way likely to.
‘per pro’ whom may we enquire?
Brexit started in 2016 when 17.4 million angry people blamed the wrong politicians for their miserable lives.
Sterling lost around 20% of its value, Honda, Hitachi, and many others pulled the plug on U.K. operations, banks and others in finance sectors started shifting assets, offices, and money around, and now Thomas Cook has gone.
Maybe you’re right, maybe Brexit hasn’t started yet. If that’s true, we really are screwed.
Btw, anyone who thinks a 20% reduction in sterling wouldn’t impact on the foreign holiday market demonstrates complete ignorance and stupidity.
Hatuey
Do you think all British Business is naive enough to think a Tory Bullingdon boy would not scupper the pound for a few sheckels?
If business is global then it matters when you have to pay foreign bills.
Shares can go up and down and if you fail to meet your repayments…
The empire2 crane is located on very soft sand.
Empire2 as i understand it, isn’t in any obvious way attached to the UK economy or government. The connections are informal. Basically it’s a rich guys’ club and running the UK into the ground wouldn’t impact on their business.
Actually, tax dodging is driving the UK economy into the ground and that is their business. We now have self employed plumbers banking offshore to avoid corporation tax. Who is going to pay for the roads and hospitals?
Does Mr Murray share a similar sympathy with Tommy Robinson who the state have equally pursued for his inconvenient publishing of facts?
Don’t you think that right wing news rags such as the Sun or Dailyhail are not giving him and his lot enough publicity,PP?
Is Tommyrot not protected by his lawyers, many supporters who have very likely voted leave and sent him thirteen sacks full of mail.
Why should Craig write about a racist?
So that’s a no then. Virtue signalling moral relativism.
Rubbish! Drug abusing, violent, convicted fraudster and Islamophobic racist Tommy Robinson was jailed for contempt of court not “publishing of facts”. Assange is now in jail as a political prisoner, he has not been charged with any crime whatsoever.
Pardon?
That’s utter nonsense.
Add this creep to the list. Not a journo but the current foreign secretary, the 5th to occupy the office in King Charles Street since the Clegg/Cameron coalition. (Hague, Hammond, Johnson, Hunt, Raab)
Assange will end up in Sweden – and quite right too
Someone wanted in connection with alleged sexual offences should face justice, writes Dominic Raab
https://www.ft.com/content/2f9ada24-eabe-11e1-984b-00144feab49a
I assume he still holds that opinion. He wrote it in 2012 when he was just an MP. Later Cameron appointed him a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Civil Liberties 2015-2016.
I wonder if Raab holds the same view about the “honourable” Andrew Windsor? After all, he is accused of much worse offences than the vague non-accusations of the two Swedish women, who didn’t even want Assange prosecuted.
“Someone wanted in connection with alleged sexual offences should face justice”
Funny how Raab seems to forget that “justice” is a two way street, both for victims and the accused. Raab’s language equates facing justice with being found guilty.
The article is paywalled, so I can’t read it, but if it’s by Mr Raab it’s probably not worth while a trip to the Library to look it up.
Craig is right about the Assange case. I wrote to Liberty to see what they think about the matter. Still no reply.
you can bypass the FT paywall (a bit), by opening https://news.google.co.uk
(‘Slurp’ often redirects this to some USserver, but keeps GB:en news content)
then you can narrow down the news cannon by searching for Dominic Raab & “alleged sexual offences”, further narrow by searching that page for the “financial times” and FT then allow you to read three or four ‘Slurp’ sourced articles, in the hope that you are a new reader and might take out a subscription. Which is always a better way to do things, I now have an FT subscription, as I can’t believe anything about gb exit in any of the other papers.