On the final day of the Assange extradition hearing, magistrate Vanessa Baraitser refused to accept an affidavit from Assange’s solicitor Gareth Peirce, on the grounds it was out of time. The affidavit explained that the defence had been unable to respond to the new accusations in the United States government’s second superseding indictment, because these wholly new matters had been sprung on them just six weeks before the hearing resumed on 8 September 2020.
The defence had not only to gather evidence from Iceland, but had virtually no access to Assange to take his evidence and instructions, as he was effectively in solitary confinement in Belmarsh. The defence had requested an adjournment to give them time to address the new accusations, but this adjournment had been refused by Baraitser.
She now refused to accept Gareth Peirce’s affidavit setting out these facts.
What had happened was this. The hearings on the Assange extradition in January 2020 did not seem to be going well for the US government. The arguments that political extradition is specifically banned by the UK/US extradition treaty, and that the publisher was not responsible for Chelsea Manning’s whistleblowing on war crimes, appeared to be strong. The US Justice Department had decided that it therefore needed a new tack and to discover some “crimes” by Assange that seemed less noble than the Manning revelations.
To achieve this, the FBI turned to an informant in Iceland, Sigi Thordarson, who was willing to testify that Assange had been involved with him in, inter alia, hacking private banking information and tracking Icelandic police vehicles. This was of course much easier to portray as crime, as opposed to journalism, so the second superseding indictment was produced based on Thordarson’s story, which was elaborated with Thordarson by an FBI team.
The difficulty was that Thordarson was hardly a reliable witness. He had already been convicted in Iceland for stealing approximately $50,000 from Wikileaks and with impersonating Julian Assange online, not to mention the inconvenient fact he is a registered sex offender for online activities with under-age boys. The FBI team was in fact expelled from Iceland by the Icelandic government, who viewed what the FBI was doing with Thordarson as wholly illegitimate.
Notwithstanding all of that, in June 2020 we had the extraordinary position of the US government, 18 months since the start of extradition proceedings and six months after opening arguments had been heard by the court, being permitted completely to change the charges and alleged crimes which were the grounds for extradition, in the second superseding indictment.
On 8 September 2020 I was in court to report Mark Summers QC addressing the question of these new superseding charges:
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.
Baraitser refused to rule out the new charges, and then did rule out the immediate defence request for an adjournment to give them time to respond to the new charges. At the end of the hearings she refused to accept the Peirce affidavit explaining why the defence was unable to respond. The court had by then spent nearly a month listening to witnesses refuting the first superseding indictment, as prepared by the defence, but nothing addressing the second superseding indictment.
Summers was absolutely furious when Baraitser refused to accept Peirce’s affidavit on the subject, to the extent he was still explosive in the street outside after the hearings had concluded.
While Baraitser’s eventual decision barred extradition on the grounds of Assange’s health and US inhumane prison conditions, the second superseding indictment and Thordarson’s accusations were accepted as a valid basis for extradition.
Thordarson has now told Icelandic magazine Stundin that his allegations against Assange contained in the indictment are untrue, and that Assange had not solicited the hacking of bank or police details. This is hardly a shock, though Thordarson’s motives for coming clean now are obscure; he is plainly a deeply troubled and often malicious individual.
Thordarson was always the most unreliable of witnesses, and I find it impossible to believe that the FBI cooperation with him was ever any more than deliberate fabrication of evidence by the FBI.
Edward Snowden has tweeted that Thordarson recanting will end the case against Julian Assange. Most certainly it should end it, but I fear it will not.
Many things should have ended the case against Assange. The First Amendment, the ban on political extradition in the US/UK Extradition Treaty, the CIA spying on the preparations of Assange’s defence counsel, all of these should have stopped the case dead in its tracks.
It is now five months since extradition was refused, no US government appeal against that decision has yet been accepted by the High Court, and yet Julian remains confined to the UK’s highest security prison. The revelation that Thordarson’s allegations are fabricated – which everyone knew already, Baraitser just pretended she didn’t – is just one more illegality that the Establishment will shimmy over in its continued persecution of Assange.
Assange democratised information and gave real power to the people for a while, worldwide. He revealed US war crimes. For that his life is destroyed. Neither law nor truth have anything to do with it.
———————————————
Forgive me for pointing out that my ability to provide this coverage is entirely dependent on your kind voluntary subscriptions which keep this blog going. This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation. You are still very welcome to read without subscribing.
Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, this blog has no source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.
Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.
Choose subscription amount from dropdown box:
Paypal address for one-off donations: [email protected]
Alternatively by bank transfer or standing order:
Account name
MURRAY CJ
Account number 3 2 1 5 0 9 6 2
Sort code 6 0 – 4 0 – 0 5
IBAN GB98NWBK60400532150962
BIC NWBKGB2L
Bank address Natwest, PO Box 414, 38 Strand, London, WC2H 5JB
Bitcoin: bc1q3sdm60rshynxtvfnkhhqjn83vk3e3nyw78cjx9
Ethereum/ERC-20: 0x764a6054783e86C321Cb8208442477d24834861a
Subscriptions are still preferred to donations as I can’t run the blog without some certainty of future income, but I understand why some people prefer not to commit to that.
“… no US government appeal has been accepted by the High Court…”
What does that mean exactly, please? Does that mean they haven’t officially, legally, made an appeal against losing their case to have Assange extradited, or what? Isn’t there supposed to be a time-limit on that kind of stuff? Surely five months exceeds this? Thanks. Michael
“Isn’t there supposed to be a time-limit on that kind of stuff? Surely five months exceeds this? “
Not for the US. For them we always make an exception.
Fa Brication Inc.
There are a lot of questions being asked so where are Assange’s lawyers. Quite frankly because JA still sits in prison his lawyers have done an abysmal job. They should be engaging with public’s concerns and putting forward reasonings for discussion. How anyone can be in prison for two years and 8 years of forced exile without any credible charges can only be associated with the worsts of fascist dictatorial states.
So where legally do things stand now? Do we wait 10 years to find out if US appeals? Please…. Mr Assange lawyers start engaging.
A good read about the Kings College Department of War Studies, exploring the confluence of journalist & secret services ‘training’.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/spy-school-kings-college-london-churning-out-journalists/277582/
Of note to this blog post, is a mention of the link between the War Studies Department & the psychiatrist who testified that Assange “was suffering only “moderate” depression and that his suicide risk was “manageable,” concluding that extraditing him to the United States “would not be unjust.””
Josh R
Looks like a self-perpetuating cult feeding on the body politic.
josh R,
There is a Professor from that College who wrote this book:-
The European Nations in the West Indies 1493-1688
Newton, A.P.
In the preface he expressed himself, quite honestly, that the indigenous native people and/or the imported enslaved Africans did not matter and that his study was dealing with terra nullius – as with Australia, a consistent and interesting point of view – huh?
Published by A & C. Black Ltd., 1933
Courteney B,
Yep, back in those days, I think folk were a bit more up front about their tribal supremacy & the ideologies they adopted to underpin it.
I get the impression it wasn’t terribly controversial back then either, rolling on from the Doctrine of Discovery, ‘White man’s burden’, imperialism & colonialism.
But then the Nazis gave it such a bad name, it got repackaged……but not forgot.
All those acolytes didn’t give it up, from eugenics to ‘population control’ & bioethics. The ideology, initially adopted because it legitimised the fascist lootin’ & shootin’ used to enrich that greedy minority, is pretty central to the horrific situation we find ourselves in today – oligarchic politics and a population of serfs.
The enormous wealth that minority amassed from the Opium wars & drug trafficking through the WW plunder & profiteering, is undoubtedly behind a lot of the influence backing the bad decision making and immoral geopolitiking that plagues the planet today – funding so many institutional bodies from think tanks to academia, ‘closed door’ circle jerks and ‘leadership’ training programs.
Not sure it’s a wise solution, but I can’t help but wonder if the compulsory conscription of the ill gotten gains of just 12 family dynasties across the planet, to fight a War on poverty/injustice, might not be a wonderful idea ?
That’d be my kind of ‘reset’ ??
Josh R,
So true. At the time of publication of the book in the 1930s The Times of London gave it a glowing review.
How to get the reset require systemic change on a global scale.
A P Newton bit the dust in 1942, you would had thought that by now his work would be in the public domain, but, this is not the case. This is thanks to the extension of the law of copyright, which is, as many things are dominated by the US. Newton’s wisdom, (irony) published in 1933 will not be available to the likes of you and me until 2038 – or 95 years after publication date. You can borrow the book from the internet archive for an hour at a time, should you wish and should your blood pressure be up to the strain.
Hi Pete,
Surprise – surprise. When I was a student in London in the 1970s I would ramble and I would roam. So, how did I obtain a copy of A.P. Newton’s book?
Well – sometimes people want to get rid of books from their home and then they simply leave them on the sidewalk – and there I found A.P. Newton’s book. Being from the West Indies (Jamaica) – the book jumped out at me and said – ” Hi – take me”. And I did. So all these years later the same book as originally published is a source of discussion and observation – sitting on my library.
And Judge – so help me – that is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
@pete
If you put the following into “Advanced Search” of Archive.org you will find a free copy from India:
Title “contains” : Nations
Creator “contains” : Newton Arthur Percival
Things are going on in this country that rightly would be condemned if they were happening in any other part of the world , the judge in this case is either working for or employed directly by the US secret services a truly disgusting dystopian method of silencing free speech in this country and this bat shit Loony home secretary who was sacked from her previous post because of her involvement with a foreign power and has a very checkered career as a lobbyist for various organisations she appears happy and is comfortable with the unsavoury aspects of unscrupulous businesses and it appears she would do anything for money I just wonder what financial skeletons and being hidden by that little madam, she appears to want to silence any objection to what this Tory government are up to and by Christ this lot make the Mafia appear childlike and amateur .
The US and UK are currently trying to entice India’s Modi into joining their military alliance against China. A key part of that strategy is to help Modi by making their former imperialist masters appear more ‘native’ and friendly to the Indian public, hence:-
Boris “let the bodies pile high” Johnson expressing sympathy and condolences to the Indians in Parliament, offering them 100 million free vaccines, allowing Indians to travel into UK despite blocking other travelers due to the Indian variant is part of that operation, along with having a couple of Indians in the cabinet.
The US engages in similar sweet talk with India, whilst waving half Indian VP Kamal Harris at them.
It’s a smart move because China invaded India in October 1962, and it hasn’t been forgotten. The North-Eastern “horn” of Kashmir was taken by China, as the North-Western had been by Pakistan. A China-Pakistan highway is being built on territory taken from India. So anyone who wants to get into India’s good books knows exactly what to do, and the US is doing it. I suspect the UK is a bit more restrained because of her wish to remain on good terms with Pakistan.
For what it it’s worth — probably very little — here is my fourth email of protest apropos Assange sent to the US Dept. of Justice:
“When is the Justice Dept. going to realize that the attempt to pursue an extradition of Julian Assange from the UK is not merely decidedly mendacious and profoundly immoral but also not even in the best interest of the US government since the longer it continues the more people in other countries, and also here in the US, will lose any faith in the US commitment to its own basic constitutionally enshrined civil liberties of free speech and a free press, and, a fortiori, the very rule of law in this country itself? This major loss of “soft power” is already a significant problem for this country’s global reputation even if those of you isolated from actual public opinions almost completely in your Washington D.C. office remain largely blind to it. Why in the world then would you then decide to choose a partisan, thoroughly vindictive, persecution of Julian Assange rather than attempting to reign in the damage your continuing pursuit of the man, upon the most specious of grounds, is causing both to the US reputation and to the very practice of, and legitimacy of, the administration of justice in this country itself? As the tide clearly turns in favor of releasing Assange from his current deplorable incarceration your current complicity in his cruel persecution can only return to show you for the authoritarian enemies of freedom of speech and press that evidently you truly are.”
Nice one. Keep sending them more like this. Even better: send them via letterhead through the snail mail so they have it physically in their hands and cannot simply delete your email with one keystroke. They then have to go through the trouble of opening the envelope, pulling out the letter, reading it, then leave it on the desk or pass it onto another person to read, or trot over to the recycle bin.
Very good. This is what the corrupt DoJ needs.
Some good news today !
Rumsfeld is dead. Excellent, may he burn in hell for eternity.
A lot of needless deaths under his belt. So too has the current president, another key architect of the Iraq invasion. The Biden role has been joyously memory holed and he will be hailed now for effusive eulogies to his fellow war criminal.
Really? I don’t remember Biden being a major figure in the Iraq invasion. The US govt was republican at the time, not democrat.
Democrats controlled the Senate and no one was more influential in granting Bush the authority to invade than Joe Biden. As chair of the Senate committee on foreign relations he chose all 18 witnesses in the main Senate hearings on Iraq and only chose people who supported a pro-war position. The restricted testimony Biden allowed was full of deceptions about WMD and al-Qaida. The resolution that granted Bush the authority to start the war was pushed through the Senate by Biden, after parading an array of expert handpicked liars.
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/01/19/bidens-key-role-in-the-crime-of-the-century-the-2003-u-s-invasion-of-iraq/
Quite correct. Biden was a longtime war hawk, supported the lies about Iraqi WMD and pushed for the AUMF. Lots of young people are not familiar with Biden’s political career and believe the hooey that the Democrats are somehow peaceniks. They need educating.
Thanks. I didn’t know these things.
Laguerre,
Mark Weisbrot – WORTH THE PRICE? Joe Biden and the Launch of the Iraq War (narrated by Danny Glover) – YouTube (19m 06s)
Imperial Domination is a bipartisan effort :-))
If you say so. I was heavily involved in the Iraq War business, and I never remember his name coming up. But then I wasn’t that interested in intestinal US politics inside the Beltway.
@laguerre
You really are some piece of work.
laguerre you may have not been interested, but that’s how it happened. the democrats were happily on board for the most part, and they helped bush every step of the way.
I guess most dumbed down Americans warm to Joe Biden as an empathetic guy who is willing to go the extra mile to help people overcome their personal tragedies. Get lucid folks, Joe Biden is apollyon the destroyer.
Thankfully intention has impaired his mind, marred his reasoning and exposed an affliction.
pretzelattack
I’m sure the Dems were on-board, this is very common in the present day. Tories on-board too for Blair’s invasion. It only says a lot about people who are totally obsessed with the internal politics of Washington and Westminster, and not with the actual effects of the war on Iraq. Biden was not important there; but Rumsfeld was.
Sarge
It’s always nice to see someone showing off their obsession with Beltway politics, and total ignorance of the actual situation on the ground. Biden had no effect on the ground. Rumsfeld did.
laguerre,
I can’t say I was much aware of Biden back then either, guess he just got lost in a deafening chorus of immoral & disingenuous warmongers.
The likes of Rumsfield, Cheney, Pearle, Wolfowitz, the Gimp, the bLiar et al were much more ‘visible’.
But the architects would have got nowhere without the vapid collaboration of a host of enthusiastic drum beaters and flag wavers in politics & the MSM, plus the hordes of otherwise good people who just weren’t “that interested” & didn’t see the lies & subterfuge for what it was.
Joe Biden was chief amongst the political enablers & promoters, if no one was interested then, they should definitely be “interested” now ‘cos the US has just voted in the same sh!t, just a different suit, to their highest political office.
This is how fuckwits sleep walk from one bloody conflict to the next, by clinging to their ignorance like some comfort blanket instead of asking the important hows, whys & whos, which might help prevent making the same filthy mistakes again.
There would be no “actual effects” of a war in Iraq without the “internal politics” that facilitated the War of Aggression in the first place, they’re not separate issues.
Complaining about the “effects” after having slept through the “politics” is just an exercise in moral masturbation.
Rumsfield might have made more of a mess “on the ground”, but troops shouldn’t have been on the ground in the first place & Biden did more than most to get them there.
That’s quite significant, & not just because I “say so”.
……looking through your other posts, it sounds like your main gripe about Rumsfeld is that he contributed to the US “losing” ?!?
wtf???
There was nothing to “win” there, it was – The. Supreme. War. Crime – ,,,, you know,,, the one mentioned when they were busy hanging Nazis for ‘lesser’ war crimes.
There was no honor to be had in fighting Iraq after 10 years of brutal sanctions & bombing.
Chaos & plunder were the only priorities, maintaining “global dominance” through control of the “energy producing regions” (that’s their own language at the PNAC).
& whilst Iraq might have been the nail in the coffin of US relevance & integrity, that pine box has been in construction since the truth emerged about Korea, Vietnam, Central & South America & countless assassinations & regime change ops…… & that’s all before Libya, Africom, Syria & Ukraine (not sure there’s enough room on that coffin for all the nails being hammered into it).
It’s all out there, well documented & not at all controversial, if you’re “interested” enough to look beyond what you’re fed.
josh R
“There was nothing to “win” there,”
Then why did they do it? I have no doubt Rumsfeld thought he was going to “get” Iraqi oil. They placed a new oil law, giving privileges to US companies, time after time before the Iraqi parliament, but it was always refused. Even today US companies have no place in Iraqi oil production.
Josh R
Biden and laguerre’s jobs both depend on the idea that nobody could ever have predicted what happened in Iraq. Not so much moral masturbation as they didn’t know a blow job with the Secretary counted as sex. They deny responsibility as vehemently as they deny having taken any benefit.
My sister’s father in law, once a civil servant in the British Raj, once chuckled that in India ” We were gods “. As in Iraq the US is now. They do that by disassociating themselves from all the 8 metre deep craters they rained onto Baghdad to get themselves as winners there. 8 meters is some scarey kind of hole.
By forgetting their initial overwhelming violence , they can switch attention to their administrative and commercial exploitation records.
Julian Assange reminding the world of US bombing and brutal , random executions of civilians upsets their vision of their own gentlemanly moderation.
‘We were gods’ chuckled at the dinner table is countered by God’s ” Oh, you think so ? ” They won’t be gods in the eternal fire of hell.
The world is perpetually hampered by the religious delusions of people like Churchill , Bush, Saddam or Blair , that the tyrannic power they want to wield is what God wants. This is the scourge of religious psychopathy,. It always happens when one mixes religion with politics. Like phosphor and water.
Crusades. Jihad. Hindu nationalism. Communism.
What you cannot persuade by intelligent discussion is never going to be persuaded by 8 metre craters. End of story. Nuff said.
giyane
You really don’t know much about Iraq, do you? That’s why the personal abuse of me you go in for.
“As in Iraq the US is now.”
I mean you have to be really ignorant to think that. The US is very deeply hated in Iraq. It’s just that Iraq doesn’t have the military means to get rid of them, if they decide to stay, as indeed was the case in Afghanistan. There are constant attacks on US convoys, but you don’t hear about them in western media because the US doesn’t want you to know. You have to read the local media. Constant bombardments of US bases. But there’s also a deep contempt for the government for its corruption, something they learnt from the Americans in 2003.
laguerre, the US federal government has always been plutocratic – even before the USA was formally created. Read about the Constitutional Convention, which already succeeded in taking all political influence away from ordinary people; and consider exactly which people were invited to participate in it, and which were not.
Shay’s Rebellion was just one of the consequences when ordinary working people came to realise how they had been tricked.
laguerre, the dems being on board is crucial to the success of the imperialism. just because you don’t care to observe how the sausage is made doesn’t change the recipe. dems wanted to constrain that scumbag reagan in central america, and thus iran contra was born. of course the dems were going to go along with it, and of course when the chips are down biden and clinton and the rest of the warmongers in the democratic party will continue to fervently support imperialism. rumsfeld was less culpable than biden because biden was in a position to do something about it, but of course biden was true to his warmonger nature and supported bush’s efforts in iraq.
Nobody would ever deny that there’s a basic cross-party consensus in the US on maintaining hegemony (as in Israel there’s no party that’s against ethnic supremacy and killing Palestinians, except for the Arab parties). It’s not news. It’s an uninteresting subject, which changes nothing. The more significant question is whether or not that monolith is succeeding in the militaristic hegemony policy of which Rumsfeld was one of the main leaders. I have no doubt that it is failing, and one of the reasons was Rumsfeld’s poor management of the Iraq war.
how significant is poor management when the mission is destined to fail in the first place. you seem to be determined to blame rumsfeld when there are more influential people to blame, such as the current president of the united states. you also implicitly endorse the war–twas “poor management” of the war and not the monumental folly of going to war in the first place, in your view.
Laguerre
Rumsfeld was may have been the main person appointed at the time but he is one of many and replaceable by others and there is no shortage of people of his type. And Bidewn and Hilary played a very big part in Libya.
Known Deceiver; Unknown Evil; Rest In Purgatory…
Rumsfeld was a disaster for the US. Poorly thought out plans, which left the US losing in Iraq, and forced finally to pull out. It was that that put the US into the decline it is now in.
Laguerra. US is still in Iraq ! It never pulled out.
Wikikettle
The US left, and came back over ISIS. Surely even you know that?
I’ll add an additional fact, which you may not know: that is that they are now only holding on by the skin of their teeth. They are hated throughout the land, and hardly seen, limited to staying on their bases. Nobody can stop the Katyusha bombardments, especially not when they bomb the wrong militia. I had evidence this week that ISIS do have the same Katyushas.
laguerre,
“They are hated throughout the land”
US presence in Iraq is hated throughout ALL the lands.
There is no defending the indefensible….. I’m just gobsmacked that this might all be news to you?!?
Josh R
They are more hated in some countries than in others.
Have you never heard of Vietnam ?
laguerre, how you evaluate Rumsfeld’s plans depends entirely on what you think his aims were.
To my mind, he succeeded in everything he set out to do.
Tom
Maybe Israel’s aims were succeeded, not the USA’s. They’re stuck in an ongoing bog that they can’t get out of by free choice. Thousands of US casualties, heavy loss of morale for US forces, decline of US prestige, loss of US position as the world hegemon. That’s a win for the US is it?
Laguerre
USUKIS are , with Al Qaida and Islamic State, a confederate alliance of poisonous megalomaniacs fighting in the vacuum of the Ottoman Empire.
Al Qaida and Islamic State are legitimate local actors, while US , UK and Israel are not, because the entire region was defeated by and converted to Islam over a millennium ago, at a time when Anglo Saxons were mostly illiterate.
USUKIS were operating in Iran for a long time prior to 2001, recruiting opponents of Saddam Hussain into nationalist and Islamist Parties.
These Parties surely never imagined the absolute cowardice of the West, the aerial bombardment and shoot anything that moves policy on the ground.
But they were so impressed by USUKIS indiscriminate violence that they formally joined USUKIS under Obama and Biden.
The Nationalists like Erdogan and Barzani invited the Islamists to occupy much of Syria and Iraq, , plunder its oil and tyrannise the people in order to subdue all resistance to USUKIS for Israel to become Greater Israel.
The reason why these countries are unable to heal, is because only nationalists and Islamists are allowed to participate with USUKIS goons in politics. The Iraqi , Turkish and Jordanian Nationalists ,are tin-pot post dictator dictators. The Islamists are just as detested as the nationalists.
Only when the nationalists and Islamist scum are gone will the region ever find peace.
it’s a win for the defense contractors, and the damned neocons who have so much influence in both parties. u.s. could easily get out of iraq by free choice; just leave. the iraqis aren’t going to try to stop them, you know.
giyane
I am not sure why you categorise Erdogan with nationalists rather than Islamist? He has throughout supported Islamist and is now the main backer of The Al Qaida in Syria.
yeah, but he lived a long life without paying for his crimes, and i for one don’t believe in hell.
pretzelattack’
“yeah, but he lived a long life without paying for his crimes, and i for one don’t believe in hell.”
Yeah – and interestingly – so too will Henry Kissinger.
http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/alfred_nobel_and_the_real_prize_peace
One of the most dangerous illusions fostered by religion is that there is a source of ultimate justice.
Sorry – there isn’t. The only reward for upright living is being an upright person, and the respect it earns you from other good people.
Jim Morrison impressed this on me about 50 years ago, with his memorable words:
When I was back there in seminary school, there was a person there who said that
‘You can petition the Lord with prayer.
You can petition the Lord with prayer.
You can petition the Lord with prayer'”.
After a dramatic pause, Morrison bellowed,
“YOU CANNOT PETITION THE LORD WITH PRAYER!”
Strictly speaking, of course, you can petition all you like. But your petition is unlikely to be granted if it’s something that wouldn’t otherwise happen anyway.
“Раз Бога нет, то всё позволено!” (Since there is no God, then anything is permitted!”)
Алексей Фёдорович Карамазов [Alexei (Fyodorovich Karamazov)
With respect, Tom Welsh sir
Those naughty seventies preceded by the naughty sixties… Jim Morrison: “You cannot petition the Lord with prayer.”
You: “Strictly speaking of course you can petition all you like. But your petition is unlikely to be granted if it’s something that would not otherwise happen anyway.”
Bob Dylan:
“There’s a kingdom called Heaven –
A place where there is no pain of birth.
Well, the Lord created it, mister,
About the same time He made the Earth.”
One might be left pondering whether your saying “unlikely” implies a probability of a break on through to the Other side and a source of ultimate justice. I think the bees suspect something.
Good wishes. Have a peaceful weekend.
Edward Bear, aka Dubya-tee-Pee
Tom Welsh
Anti-dis-establishment de-proselytisation. A small village in Wales where most of the chapels have been converted into posh people’s second dwellings.
“One of the most dangerous illusions fostered by religion is that there is a source of ultimate justice.”
I’m not sure why that is dangerous.
It doesn’t need to be heaven and hell; it could be “karma”, or something like that. I don’t believe any of that stuff anymore, but I do think that being kind and decent is it’s own reward; and that being an arsehole is it’s own punishment.
Stevie Boy-I think we must be twins! My thoughts entirely.
Better to let Heaven decide what justice is (though I won’t personally blame any victim of torture or abuse for wishing punishment on the persons responsible).
God botherer – the ancient rights of kings and popes as appointed by a sky fairy.
We are a 21 years into the C21st – care to climb out of the first millennium into the 3rd? Or insist on keeping the same old lies?
But…but, does he KNOW he is dead , or is his ghost going to claim it is an uknown? Will he rose like a zombie?
If you KNOW that two and two make four, that act of knowing cannot be just a chemical reaction in your brain, right?
Krystal and Saagar cover the Icelandic development on Breaking Points.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W_YE1pjB9d0
Breaking Points is their personal spinoff from their successful show on The Hill. BP uses a subscription model so unclear the extent of their total viewership. Occasional snippets such as this are dumped on open access YouTube.
More power to Krystal and Saagar.
Vivian O’Blivian. I used to watch them on The Hill. They’ve broken away to set up for themselves on Breaking Points on YouTube (as you say). Best of luck to them.
They already have 479k subscribers.
I would appreciate an outright condemnation by them of the Young Turks’ smearing OPCW, smearing Aaron Mate for exposing the OPCW lies about Douma, and generally pushing Russiagate.
Aaron said TYT The Young Turks smearing him, has brought more publicity to the subversion of the OPCW. TYT viewing figures have plummeted. The Great Robert Fisk went to Douma and did real Journalism. He would be proud of of the real young Turks such as Aaron and Max Blumenthal. Not the fat corrupted fake TYT.
Hear, hear. I met Robert Fisk once in San Francisco after attending one of his talks. Wonderful, intrepid reporter. I have read both of his books, too.
Carolyn Zaremba. It was very sad that Robert Fisk passed away. I think he’d moved back to Ireland from Beirut to complete another book. A brave Journalist, Independent and Scholarly Historian who in my eyes has passed the light of the torch onto Craig to illuminate the darkness.
Young Turks are a bunch of jerk-off losers. Don’t waste any time watching that crap. Ana Kasparian is a sellout dingbat.
Ana is of Armenian descent. The (original) Young Turks were the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide. Her lack of principle and pride goes far beyond just praising Madeleine Albright
From memory Krystal and Saagar quickly and often refuted the Russiagate attack line on Trump. I can’t recall a segment on Douma, but Tucker Carlson did several segments on Douma so it seems likely that Saagar also raised the subject on Rising.
As for Krystal and Saggar publicly picking a fight with TYT at this point, better to stay silent and leave TYT to sink into an abyss of their own making.
Rumsfeld….one less drivel-gushing ogre.
Wings Over Scotland RIP. But won’t we need something like it again – and soon?
https://stageleft.blog/2021/07/01/broken-wings-bath-votes-snp/
Robert graham
July 1, 2021 at 08:25
Things are going on in this country that rightly would be condemned if they were happening in any other part of the world , the judge in this case is either working for or employed directly by the US secret services.
—————————————————–
Robert,
I seem to remember that the judge, Vanessa Baraitser, was married to a member of the Security Services.
I could not be sure so I have just searched Wikipedia for her but what I got was; Judge Baraitser dose not exist, did you mean Judge Bannister?
As I write this comment the name Baraitser comes up as a spelling mistake underlined in red!
I tried again and all that came up was a Wikipedia reference to Julian Assange where the spelling of Baraitser was used. WTF?
Well, yeah, that’s the drawback of having a publicly-edited encyclopedia. Wikipedia is great for finding out about anything except contentious issues, but you have the whole of the rest of the internet for them.
Try this, it is not exactly wikepedia but interesting enough
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Vanessa_Baraitser
Douglas Scorgie, Mary was really good at background searches. Haven’t seen a post from her for a while. Hope all OK Mary.
—
[ Mod: Mary last posted here on the 21st of April: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/04/pure-ten-points-i-just-cant-believe-about-the-official-skripal-narrative/comment-page-11/#comment-987143
Her absence was also noted on the Lifeboat News. A friend contacted her, and she said she was fine but was taking a break from web forums: https://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/thread/1618935597.html
Thank you for your concern. ]
Much love Mary.
Thanks for the news on Mary. Relieved she is ok and taking a break from all this bad news.
How do we All take a break Wiki… I despair at times
thanks for the info on much missed Mary, mods, good to hear she is resting and ok.
Thank you Nevermind
Was about to ask about Mary.. Thanks for recent comments too.. August Festival AYE
That’s a relief.
Try this:
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Vanessa_Baraitser
See here for the background on the original judge – Arbuthnot, and her extremely compromising links to anti Assange groups. She is apparently likely to have chosen Baraitser, apparently, so the whole thing has been progressed by stridently anti- Assange people. Shocking, not surprising.
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-09-04-as-british-judge-made-rulings-against-julian-assange-her-husband-was-involved-with-right-wing-lobby-group-briefing-against-wikileaks-founder/
You’re right! I’m amazed she has no article.
I was thinking of creating one using this:
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Vanessa_Baraitser
But it wouldn’t last two minutes.
It’s extremely, uniquely difficult to find information on Baraitser. Along with others here, I tried. I got some odds and ends that nobody else did, a photo of half her face not at wikispooks, oddly got probably correct personal info of the type one should not put in articles, but basic public, article stuff was almost nonexistent and very hard to get. Some of the few relevant sites pop up only on Duck-duck-go, not google. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that she works hard to be obscure and/or, probably both, her identity has been scrubbed from the internet; a remarkably thorough job requiring real connections and resources.
I used to spend a lot of time on Wikipedia, wrote some of the rules. One of my specialties was saving articles about obscure but interesting people from deletion. I doubt one on her would survive, especially as the prevalence of wikipedia members with right-wing and pro-intelligence service biases has become more pronounced.
But fabrications are default rancid fare for corrupt and perverted supporters and subverting driver agents alike, and for some considerable time already nowadays. There is nothing novel there.
The secret to success though which renders its tales and trails ineffective, is to use any intelligence one might have to relentlessly question the direction and destination of travel and specific reason[s] for such as attempts a remote brainwashing. One is then availed of many an effective tool that can easily thrash and trash the fool bearing false witness and fake news.
amanfromMars 1 Fri 2 Jul 05:59 [2107020559] ….. stating the bleeding obvious to the fundamentally weak and encouragingly oblivious on https://forums.theregister.com/forum/1/2021/07/01/kubernetes_russia_warning/
Have some folk nothing better to do with their time in these very strange spaces/overly complicated places
So, apart from Mama Bear Russia, yet again we are led to believe is having ready access to all of the Honey from the Magic Money Tree, it’s just another day in the Paradise Office Suite delivering Hell and High Water to Any and All in the Market Place Prepared to Accept and Dump, Pimp and Pump it into IT and AI.
Are US and UK intelligence and law enforcement agencies aware of the expression …. A One Trick Pony Stuck Fast in a Heavenly Rut is Just A.N.Others’ Beast of Burden and Diabolical Trojan Horse.
July 3, tomorrow Saturday, is an important, decisive and meaningful day. It is the eleventh-hour, the last chance to break from oppresion, injustice and domination by neoliberal, political art hyprocrisy and human rights violations.
The ‘fatuous’ millions, as Mr Blair said in a memo to George W Bush, who marched against the Iraq war are called again to demand freedom for journalist Julian Assange who is 50 yrs of age tomorrow, obscured, in solitude, tortured 23 hrs a day.
Invoke some happiness for him and break the self-immolation before it destroys him forever.
They just can’t let Assange go free. No way.
They can, and must if they care anything about professed ideals such as due process, rule of law, free speech, freedom of the press, tolerance of dissent, etc. The whole world is watching the West on this one to see if it belatedly lives up to its vaunted liberal principles.
However, the fact there is still a total media blackout on this bombshell revelation about the lead witness suggests that when it comes to professed ideals the Western powers intend to continue showering themselves in the brown stuff. Just at a time when they’re desperate to assert moral authority over a rising China. At every turn these days Western liberals can’t help showing what they really are.
The “whole world” who? Nobody is watching, except a couple of freaks. Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K73nedkqgGg
Who? All the countries the West is trying to keep out of China’s sphere of influence. Why do you think the president of Azerbaijan, for example, was able to reference Assange when he was scolded by some BBC fraud?
https://youtu.be/Q9s6YggbTk4
The developing world isn’t taking moral lectures from the West anymore. The West’s persecution of dissenting journalists and whistleblowers is a factor in that.
In any case Yuri how does the persecution of these brave truthtellers benefit you? It’s not you they are exposing as a criminal and a fraud, so what’s the problem?
Well, you are barking at the wrong tree, Joel. I am one of those freaks who would like Assange to go free. What I am saying is, there are not enough of us to make any difference. And this is what makes indefinite imprisonment of Assange possible.
Oh sorry mistook you for a ragged trousered philanthropist. I agree wof course that the vast majority in the West have been ruthlessly propagandized not to care about Assange and even to actively despise him. This latest media blackout shows the lengths they are still prepared to gio. But outwith the West they are obviously watching and taking note. The clear thinking among Western elites will understand the effect it will have on what’s left of the West’s soft power and the moral authority of western liberalism.
Unfortunately for Julian I don’t get the impression Joe Biden is either a clear thinker or a man of compassion.
There is a comparison to be made,
Anne Sacoolas ran in to an English motorcyclist and caused his death, almost straight away the American services flew her back to Langley, U.S.A.
Julian Assange never caused anyone harm.
Yet he is still in maximum security confinement.
650 members of Parliament, you would have thought a few of them could have spotted the inconsistency between how kid-gloves Anne Sacoolas has been treated and how unimaginably hard Julian Assange has been treated.
It is like they are in different universes.
“Anne Sacoolas ran in to an English motorcyclist and caused his death, almost straight away the American services flew her back to Langley, U.S.A.
Julian Assange never caused anyone harm.
Yet he is still in maximum security confinement.”
Yes, but Anne Sacoolas was part of the conspiracy to prevent you, me and the majority of UK citizens from discovering what is actually going on in certain military installations; whereas Julian Assange was part of the conspiracy to expose to you, me and the majority of UK citizens what is actually going on in certain military installations.
You have to allow for the extreme paranoia of the security services. Their web of lies has to expand exponentially these days, in order to cover up the other lies they have been telling for decades.
I had though that one of the main themes of English law, was that we are all equal under the law, I expect I am mistaken.
“Harry Dunn died when a car crashed into his motorbike outside US military base RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire. The aftermath sparked an international controversy when Anne Sacoolas, who worked at the base for the US State Department, claimed diplomatic immunity via her husband on her behalf – allowing her to leave the UK for Langley, nine days after the crash.
Anne Sacoolas was charged with causing the teenager’s death by dangerous driving after her departure from the UK, but an extradition request was rejected by the US State Department in January last year.
So, if an extradition request to return a person who has caused the death of an Englishman, in England, is not allowed by the Yanks.
Why should English Law allow an Australian chap, who has done no wrong to be extradicted from England to the U.S.A. on the say so of America?
Can anybody else not any leveling up here,
it seems to be leveling down against English Law in favour of U.S.A.Law?
There are further points.
At what time was Anne Sacoolas granted diplomatic immunity.
Was it
a) before the death of Harry,
b) just after the death of Harry,
c) just before she escaped on an aircraft to Langley,
d) after she had left U.K. land.
Then we need to see, in writing, why Anne was granted immunity.
After we have gained that knowledge, we then can properly compare the treatment of Julian Assange.
He is apparently being held because he jumped bail for rape or other sexual charges , not committed in Sweden.
However, we now know that no charges were ever issued from Sweden for Julian assange.
There would seem to be a many-headed-hydra at work to keep Julian locked-up to disuade others from thinking they can get one over on the Deep State of the U.S.A.
Michael Norton: there was never any suggestion that Julian had been charged with any offence committed in Sweden. He was merely wanted for questioning there. There was no secret about that. It was known from the start. The European Arrest Warrant does not require there to be any charges against the person whose arrest is sought
Craig has discussed the Sacoulas case. I think his conclusion was that Sacoulas never actually had immunity as neither she or her husband were on the diplomatic list. There may however have been a pretence on the part of the UK authorities that she did have immunity, thus enabling her to leave the country safely
Not for the first (or, I fear, the last) time, may I cite Upton Sinclair?
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it”.
As far as the American regime is concerned Julian Assange committed the ultimate offence: lesse majeste. When you are a murdering narcissistic empire creating your own reality, the last thing you need is someone telling the world the truth about your war crimes.
2 Joel: I do not believe this is the result of propaganda. Most people naturally do not care. A gay parade in Brugge had about 5 times more participants (my estimate) than this pro-Assange march in Washington, DC in the video I gave the link above. Sign an online petition to free Assange? Yeah, whatever. Click-click, done. Easy-peasy. Keep clicking, nobody reads these petitions.
You can bet your ass that the secret services do.
It’s possible that Assange may be released in the near future, if the US becomes convinced that they would have no hope of convincing an American jury in a fair trial, and so decide not to waste more time and money.
The last thing they have planned for him is a fair trial, dont worry. He is slated to go to the eastern district court of Virginia, where he would be tried by a security state judge and jury.
It’s unlikely that Assange will be released, however irregular, and indeed illegal, his detention may be. There will always be the argument that he will flee the justice that in fact he is not faced with.
Yes – the justice he is faced with is for the public consumption and the pot is kept boiling by the media.
The truth is that legally he has done his sentence for jumping bail in the UK.
He should walk like every other subject ( it is the Queens Prosecution ) when they have served their time.
But what we have here is a British Court holding someone for what they might do.
He could walk out of prison and throw a brick through the US Embassy window and rightly he’ll be back in UK prison.
For my money the strange part of all this is that the UK is holding him for the US as if he does do what they think he might do ( hide in another Embassy? ) and then they can’t get to him even on false charges.
He might not do that.
Or he might.
To paraphrase some one – There are things we might do and things we will do but we don’t know what we’ll do until we have to do them and it is done.
Perhaps the Judge is practicing clairvoyance and not the law?
“A security state judge and jury “
Aren’t they all these days?
All the talk of fair trials, not wasting further monies, releasing Julian Assange out of a sense of justice or fair play etc completely miss the point of his incarceration and the nature of the world as it is. He’s being punished for the “transgression” of revealing the criminal activity of governments. For that he will be punished and possibly left to die in prison.
And the narrative will be so twisted and controlled that this abhorrent conduct will be either applauded by the general public or at the very least ignored by them as a non-event. Please don’t deceive yourselves that there will be some sort of reliance on the notions of natural justice or a fair trial that will result in his release.
If he is released it’ll only be because the implicated governments perceive some strategic advantage in his release.
…..and still not a word in the media, which includes the professedly ‘neutral’ state outlets.
https://www.medialens.org/2021/a-remarkable-silence-media-blackout-after-key-witness-against-assange-admits-lying/
This is precisely the sort of behaviour which, historically, has led to ‘demonstrations’ in order to draw the public’s attention to tyrannical acts on the part of the powerful.
It is the positive duty of citizens, at times like this, to insist on the conspiracy of silence being broken and force power to choose between massive disorder or honest explanation.
Authority currently rests on the unstable foundations of popular apathy and sectarianism. This will end when the public realises that there is not the smallest justification in law for keeping this man in prison, and that as long as he is imprisoned the government is, in effect, warning citizens that their freedom is dependent on the whims of the state.
The case of Craig Murray is different only in detail: he is being punished for celebrating the proper working of the law in the case of Alex Salmond, and for defending trial by jury.
Why the streets are not closed down by an indignant population will, one trusts, be a mystery to succeeding generations.
Beautifully Put.. Bevin
I am in the Craig Camp…. Truth Aaron Mate..
Disinformation, omission, demonization and when necessary complete blackouts. Mass media propaganda works. If you see a reader of this site claiming otherwise that is not naive but something else.
Good mass media propaganda works, joel. Bad mass media propaganda simply effectively personally and corporately identifies the enemy/bug/worm/trojan to be liquidated.
“Good mass media propaganda works”
I don’t actually agree, entirely. It works up to a point. It works well when there’s a ready audience.
I don’t think you can excuse the behaviour of a population on the grounds that they were propagandized. Often, populations are resistant to propaganda. It certainly helps if there are independent journos, like Craig, Pilger and Assange. But even if there aren’t (e.g. they’ve all been locked up or disappeared), populations can see through the bullshit. It depends on the population.
I think the English, in particular (and I’m English) are inclined to xenophobia and authoritarianism; we’re not very good at resisting MSM propaganda. The break-up of the UK will make that much worse for us. I’m still in favour, though; it’s a problem for the English, the Scots shouldn’t have to deal with it.
Rather than implicitly blaming the mass of the population, why not attempt a structural analysis? Julian Assange has done the public a great service but the public didn’t ask for it and will only have been ignorant of the details of state terrorism, after all, most of us have lived with it for all of our lives. Sneering at the public doesn’t help.
Very coherent, thanks.
The ‘mass of the population’ are the same ones who voted the tories back into power after more than 10 years of tory lies, corruption and incompetence. They are the same ones who believe the Covid narrative. They are the same ones who believed Salisbury was attacked by the Russians with one of the deadliest nerve agents ever and only a cat and a homeless person died (and the cat was murdered). They are the same ones who believe in Aliens, UFOs and ghosts.
Sorry, but the ‘mass of the population’ are terminally stupid. There’ll be no help there.
Sorry, but the ‘mass of the population’ are terminally stupid. There’ll be no help there. ……. Stevie Boy, July 3, 2021 at 15:21
That is as can be, Stevie Boy, however the diamond studded silver lining to that particular and peculiar cloud is the fact that they be of no earthly hindrance or future worth to events unfolding outside of their command and control/remote virtual remit. Such is a Great EMPowering Convenience, Zero ZeroDay Interference and No Necessary Intervention which is an Unnecessary Futile Resistance.
Squeeth. In age of Independent media, ignorance is no excuse.
“Mass media propaganda works”.
I regret to say that I agree. It got Brexit voted for and Trump elected. Democracy is a delicate flower that can’t be taken for granted, nor can human rights. They have to be actively promoted.
I wonder if there is any institute whose mandate is to promote democracy as such, as distinct from any current national or party interest. For human rights we have Amnesty and this blog 🙂
“It got Brexit voted for and Trump elected.”
Whereas staying in the neoliberal EU and electing Hillary Clinton would have been a triumph for critical thinking and popular democracy- is that what you are suggesting?
Since you mention it, Hillary and Remain would have been preferable to me. But what’s done is done. Now we should try to prevent a Trump come back and wait till the consequences of Brexit make a Norway or Switzerland – type deal, if not a return, more desirable.
why on earth would you prefer either? if you wanted a war with russia i guess hillary was your candidate.
M.J
The better of two evils eh? Well that is the problem with US politics the two evils are equally bad. We shall spend the next 3.5 years ignoring Biden’s continuation of imperialist policies, just to make sure that we don’t get the same policies from Trump.
it certainly works on you.
I dunno about Brexit, this was your British event. But Trump got elected against the efforts of mass media propaganda, so his election proved propaganda does not always work.
Why do Trump apologists always pretend he had no MSM support?
The Fox “news” network, along with all other Murdoch outlets – just for starters – gave Trump nothing but unqualified support, lavishly praising him and his family as if he were Jesus’ younger brother, Reagan, and the Founding Fathers all rolled into one. They continued to do so for his entire miserable term in office. And the opposition (Clinton) had a full monstering for 30 years running up to the election.
Right-wing hate-radio, coast-to-coast on virtually all stations were even more hysterical in their championing of Trump and trashing of Clinton.
No mass media support? Are you kidding, just ignorant of the facts, or being less than honest here?
I don’t think Yuri K said Hillary had 100% MSM support. But it was as close to that as made much difference, including many major state newspapers that had previously only ever endorsed a Republican. She also raised vastly more corporate bribe money than Trump.
That she still achieved the impossible in spite of all those advantages was no great loss to anybody but herself.
Nice piece by Alexander Mercuris re Craig case on consortiumnews today.
I shall be standing in front of the forum in Norwich this lunchtime, at an XR event, with my poster saying ‘happy 50th birthday Julian Assange’ however contrived it may sound.
Enjoy your weekend folks, yellowstone is rumbling, as is Hekla in Iceland. The NSSS sadly did not report this series of earth tremors, or they are incompetently challenged, or have been told to shut up about it.
Any action from Julian’s legal team on this yet? I assume they’ve known this all along but with a ‘confession’, surely there’s something they can do.
@Robyn-good question.
As a lawyer, I am somewhat bemused, by the apparent failure by Assange’s legal team, to appeal the decision to remand JA in custody pending the appeal. Whilst I understand the flawed reasoning of the District Judge in remanding in custody, surely the piss-poor reasoning in the judgment should have been put before a ‘real’ judge sitting in the High Court.
I suspect there may be some reason but I simply don’t see what it could be.
We do need lawyers here discussing the case. My query is that since no charges eventuated from Sweden then the bail jumping is of no legal value. It should not have been used as a pretext to argue Assange is a bail jumper.
Ingwe, thanks for that response, I’ve raised the question in various forums over the last year or so and you’re the first to respond. I have zero legal knowledge but have been wondering for some time why Julian’s lawyers haven’t at least been able to get better conditions for him. I read that at some stage Julian got some much needed materials only because his fellow prisoners advocated for him – something his legal team had apparently not been able (or had not attempted) to do for him. I don’t want to besmirch Julian’s legal team – as I said, I have no legal knowledge but if it weren’t for the fact that Stella is a lawyer I would have serious doubts about the effort being made on his behalf.
Julian Assange celebrates his 50th birthday today… in Belmarsh maximum security prison.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1411322597271351298 –
Media Lens Unmissable and powerful message
Y’all need some context
https://www.emptywheel.net/2021/06/29/charlie-savage-plays-with-his-magic-time-machine-to-avoid-doing-journalism/
It’s been very clear, particularly in the last year, that all MSM journalists are owned by the deep state.
Freedom and democracy? Lolsss
This does all seem so long-drawn out that it’s hard not to believe the US is making some other point – perhaps an attempt to discredit the UK justice system (still widely thought of as one of the best in the world), or indeed by the sheer brazenness of the apparent corruption as a reminder of ‘who is boss’. There is a pattern here of the US government trying to discredit UK institutions – from the BBC (via attacks in the rest of the media, much of it US-controlled) to the Monarchy (Epstein/Prince Andrew and Meghan Markle) and history (the BLM protests etc), the military (the Crimea set-to the other week), our electoral system (via their stooge Farage) and various attempts to undermine the NHS during the covid crisis. Of course, it might be that our institutions don’t need any help discrediting themselves, and we are doing all the damage ourselves – however I just throw out the possibility that Assange may not be being used in the way it at first appears.
Tom 74,
“This does all seem so long-drawn out that it’s hard not to believe the US is making some other point – perhaps an attempt to discredit the UK justice system (still widely thought of as one of the best in the world), or indeed by the sheer brazenness of the apparent corruption as a reminder of ‘who is boss’.”
You are on to something here.
It is not that the US is getting what it wants – it is proving not as predictable as they wanted. But – Julian is really suffering in the mean time.
The Bush administration claimed J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series was encouraging witchcraft.
Recently Rowling has been targeted for being “anti-trans”.
As you know Rowling is one of Britain’s most successful authors.
I too think you’re onto something.
deep thinking gets richly deserved plaudits.
Did J K Rowling really write the Harry Potter books or was it a group of ghost writers doing their bit for Project Chaos?
In Peter Wright’s Spycatcher he reveals that the original keeper of the MI5 Registry was one Mr.Harry Potter.
Who knows?
Was Mahatma Gandhi a real person or is the name derived from the Geordie for ‘I’ve got my hat, now I’m off out.’
Who knows JM? Who knows…
Indeed 🙂
Harry Potter and spoookery projects?
http://mileswmathis.com/potter.pdf
Dear Craig,
Please can you draw attention to this article regarding corporate media’s shutdown on truth pertaining to Julian Assange’s torture by the US and British States. His framing is a crime against humanity. US and UK are clearly sham democracies with appalling justice records.
I wish you and Julian strength in your fights for justice – anybody who dares to speak the truth these days in US or UK is demonised and forcibly shut down and tortured.
Here is the latest shocking information https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/07/03/stun-j03.html?pk_campaign=assange-newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws.
My sincere best wishes to you in your horrific plight – Scotland should also be deeply ashamed!
Who are these judges who claim to represent Justice? Have they all been bought off?
Very recently many midsize companies were hacked through ransomware by criminal groups: CIA Vault 7 hacking techniques may have been used – leaked through a contractor and published through Wikileaks. The US Military Industrial complex does not seem to learn that they cannot open a Pandora box just by themselves. The 1940s N-bomb development and the recent GOF virus experiments come to mind too.
So a full week has passed and still no acknowledgement anywhere in MSM that the lead witness in the Julian Assange case lied.
By contrast the Guardian’s website is still carrying a made up story that Julian held secret talks with Paul Manafort in the Ecuadorian embassy.
A huge number of educated adults proudly bankroll this rag, convinced it is a beacon of truth sticking it to the establishment.
Yes, the Guardian is truly a sold-out sack of shite ‘news’ rag, utterly in lockstep and taking orders from MI6/Mi5 agencies. They even have an MI5 spook on the board of directors for the Guardian. After the Guardian’s Snowden publications on mass surveillance in 2014 the spooks came down hard on the Guardian brought them to heel and use them as a propaganda outlet. The Guardian reminds me of the insufferable NPR ‘news’ outlet in USA, which same as you point out for the Graun has loads of wealthy liberals of the Clinton vein making big donations to them, thinking they are getting the ‘beacon of truth’ journalism from it when the opposite is true 😀
Tone of the Express article (linked below) is possibly a bit too optimistic, but I like the idea that Parliamentarians might be exhibiting some ‘back bone’ on this subject, for a change.
“A cross-party group of parliamentarians first requested an online meeting (with Julian Assange) in December 2020. It is simply unacceptable that six months on this simple request continues to be met with such intransigence.”
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1455662/Julian-Assange-latest-news-released-Belmarsh-prison-London-Labour-Party-Richard-Burgon
To understand why and what this absolute media silence has achieved, here is what happened Saturday. I stood for a good two hours in the center of Norwich with my placard saying ‘Free Julian Assange now! and happy 50th. birthday on it.’ Two people genuinely asked who he was, so I explained and they both said,’ but we thought he was dead, is he still in prison?
This is the result of silence for two years, that is why hardly anyone reported on his trial, other more trivia news was deemed to be on the front and any other page in their publications/ excretions.
Some people nodded knowingly as they passed, but generally people looked puzzled, the accusatory mixed messages they remember from the past ten years news seemingly did not add up.
I would like to thank Jeremy Corbyn, who was In Norwich and Norfolk to highlight the Wensum Link road shambles, a 3.5mile completion of another ring road ala US design, a snip at an ever rising cost, now 205 million, and the utterly shameful Kings Lynn Alexandra hospital that for two years has been propping up the roof of the hospital with 200 metal stays, waiting for Conservative cllrs./ministers promises to build a new hospital.
He is putting his money were his mouth is and there are few people in the media giving him credit, more omission by silence and or parochial reporting.
The amount of importance people attach to what they want to remember is short timed and determined by what their daily life’s and interest put on to their daily agenda, in a pandemic everything they hear and see is currently tinged with reoccurring message of fear and regulatory control, it seems to overlay everything that captivates them/us.
Nevertheless, it was worth it and only one chap, marching past, giving out some garbled comment I could not hear over the XR drumming practice, was not prepared to stop and speak.
Two hours well spent with a placard ‘nevermind’, cheers! Probably more worthwhile than writing to the Belmarsh governor Rob Davis who has no authority to release him.
I am writing to ‘Sisters Uncut’, one of the groups leading the ‘Kill the Bill’ (Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill) movement, with emphasis on the pain, suffering and distress on Julian’s family rather than an inane political letter requesting an online meeting with Julian Assange to discuss err? what!
Even the Justice secretary, privy councillor Robert Buckland is impotent. contained and disciplined by the British Secret Service and American CIA.
Some time ago, Swedish prosecutors were trying to coax Julian Assange to Sweden, so they could ask him questions. They have never proffered charges against him.
All pretence of charges have now been dropped, by Sweden.
Julian was manhandled out of the Embassy of Ecuador by English officers and sent to Belmarsh, this apparently for bail jumping. He remains in Belmarsh.
Given that there have never been any charges made against Julian in Sweden, one would have thought that the briefs working for Julian could have applied to the courts to have him released?
Exactly. I have been trying to solicit some qualified opinion on this aspect.
Let’s say the Swedish authorities made a mistake of identity and Julian went through the whole process under that mistake. So does the person with the mistaken identity continue with the same legal ramifications against him?
Not proffering charges can be looked upon as the same as mistaken identity in terms of outcome.