How the Guardian’s
deferential mediocrities behaved like a pack of wolves in defence of the special relationship & the British state
On
11th April Police entered the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and
dragged out Julian Assange, the Editor of Wikileaks, who had been sheltering
there for 7 years under fear of extradition to the USA.
The
reaction in Britain’s yellow press was entirely predictable. He was denounced
as a coward, a traitor and liar by a press not known for its courage or willingness
to challenge the centres of power.
Former Ecuadorian Foreign
Minister Ricardo Patino described
the behaviour of Ecuador’s Prime Minister, Lenin Moreno as having allowed Ecuador to be seen as a ‘vassal’ of the United States.
This is an insult to the dignity of our
country, it is lawlessness – to allow the British police to enter our embassy
and pull out the person we gave asylum to. And according to our constitution
and international agreements it is forbidden to extradite him, this is called
the principle of non-refoulement
 |
| Riots in Ecuador after Assange's arrest belie Sopel's assumptions that Moreno speaks for his country |
John
Sopel, conducted a fawning and sycophantic interview with Moreno, even by the
BBC’s standards, as to his reasons for inviting the Police into the Embassy.
Sopel didn’t even mention that as an Ecuadorian citizen, the decision was
illegal under Ecuadorian law. Not once was Moreno challenged to produce
evidence concerning his allegations even though Assange was being monitored by video.
 |
| Jon Sopel's fawning interview on BBC was a disgrace journalism |
Sopel’s
interview was more an invitation to set out unchallenged Moreno’s case, with a
view to destroying Assange’s case against extradition through an attack on his reputation,
thus shoring up the official picture of a discreditable Assange. Given that
Assange could not respond, since he is currently incarcerated in Belmarsh, the
failure to interview his lawyers demonstrates that once again the BBC’s role is
one of fawning deference to the State.
 |
| James Ball urges Assange to hand himself over for extradition out of spite and pique |
According
to Global Research’s Stephen
Lendman Moreno, unlike his predecessor Rafael Correa, is a CIA asset.
Whereas Correa ordered a US airbase quit Ecuador, Moreno has invited them back
in. Whereas Correa opposed privatisation
Moreno has welcomed it. Moreno has instituted a programme of neo-liberal
austerity and IMF bondage. It is little wonder that he is a hero
to the BBC and the United States.
But
if the BBC’s role as the Foreign Office’s propaganda arm is not unexpected then
the same cannot be said of The Guardian. The Guardian’s betrayal of Assange and
the vituperative comments of its gaggle of talentless columnists is shocking
even by recent standards.
 |
| Amazingly this flatulent 'journalist' complained of abuse!! and the Guardian calls this journalism |
'I bet Assange is
stuffing himself full of flattened guinea pigs. He really is the most massive
turd.'
I confess I don’t know what a ‘flattened guinea pig’ is unless it is a creature
unfortunate enough to have had Moore sit on it. Moore graduated from the Marxism
Today to the Daily Mail
before ending up at the The
Guardian. Somewhat more incisive was Germaine Greer’s observation that Moore
possessed “hair bird's-nested all over
the place, fuck-me shoes and three fat inches of cleavage.’
 |
| The obvious question when I see Marina Hyde's output is 'what is she for'? Bad in-jokes, childish puns, school girl triviality and an inability to say anything worthwhile |
The
depths of Moore’s journalistic viciousness, because really she is a paid press
thug is captured by Media
Lens. In
December 2010, Moore wrote that
'it's difficult to get a clear picture of the
complaints by two women he had sex with in Sweden in August... The sex appears
to have been consensual, though his refusal to use condoms was not’.
By June 2012 She tweeted:
‘'Seems like Assange's supporters did not
expect him to skip bail? Really? Who has this guy not let down?' and then added her
puerile ‘turd’ comment which seems to have been a case of self-projection.
In 2011 Moore commenting
on Assange supporters gathered outside the courts dressed in orange
Guantanamo Bay jumpsuits. ‘Does anyone
seriously believe this is what will happen to Assange?' As Media Lens observed:
The fact that Assange has now been
arrested at the request of the US seeking his extradition over allegations that
he conspired with Chelsea Manning, means that Assange’s claimed motive for
seeking political asylum now appears very credible indeed – he
was right about US intentions.
Yet there has not been so much as a single word of contrition from Moore and
her fellow gutter ‘journalists’.
 |
| A more suitable title would be 'Why I betrayed Assange for the Guardian's 30 pieces of silver' |
Another
even more cowardly hack is James Ball. In an article
for the Sunday Times on April 14th Ball claimed that Assange
was:
' the architect of his own downfall. Bullish and
grandiose yet plagued by paranoia, the WikiLeaks boss is his own worst enemy.'
 |
| I have yet to see a mea culpa over this prediction gone wrong from a 'journalist' with a bad conscience |
Ball worked for WikiLeaks in 2010 and 2011. His
departure was acrimonious. He has since acted as the Guardian’s chief attack
dog. A piece in January 2018 'The
only barrier to Julian Assange leaving Ecuador's embassy is pride'.
had as its subheading 'The WikiLeaks
founder is unlikely to face prosecution in the US'. Ball wrote:
There is no public criminal case against Assange or
WikiLeaks in the US, though Assange frequently says there is evidence of sealed
indictments against him and his associates, and there have been publicly
disclosed surveillance warrants against WikiLeaks staff, as well as FBI interest in Assange and his current and former co-workers
(including me, as I worked with WikiLeaks for a few months in 2010 and 2011). There is
no real reason to believe anything has changed with Assange’s situation in the
US….
Assange should not face prosecution in the US in
connection with WikiLeaks publishing activities – it would go against
constitutional principles of free expression, and damage the media’s ability to
hold power to account
I look forward to Ball recanting. Ball was not the
only ‘journalist’ to defend the secret state rather than basic journalistic
principles.
 |
| The ability to say nothing worthwhile has been a hallmark of Aaronovitch's time as a journalist |
David Aaronovitch, who once promised to eat
his hat if WMD weren’t discovered in Iraq, tweeted 'I see Tolstoy has just been arrested in
central London.' Which didn’t stop this idiot complaining apropos Sir John
Chilcott that it’s easy to be wise after the event. No David 2 million people who demonstrated in
London against the Iraq War refused to believe the US propaganda that took you
for a fool.
Jessica Elgot, the Guardian’s Zionist political editor
and a free transfer from the Jewish Chronicle joined in:
'Apparently
Julian Assange's internet access has been cut off since March so he probably
thinks we've left the EU'
ITV’s Robert Peston retweeted an
image of Christ with his hand raised in blessing paired with a photograph of
Assange making a 'victory sign' from inside a prison van. As Media Lens commented:
‘Like
so much 'mainstream' humour, the tweet was embarrassingly unfunny, strangely
callous.’
Ash Sarkar of the 'alternative' Novara Media, who has had numerous opinion
pieces published in the Guardian and who is a guest on various flagship BBC programmes
tweeted:
'Just
sayin' it's possible to think that Julian Assange is a definite creep, a probable
rapist, a conspiracist whackjob *and* that his arrest has incredibly worrying
implications for the treatment of those who blow the whistle on gross abuses of
state power.'
Sarkar wrote that
Assange’s arrest ‘came *after* the
investigations into rape and the Swedish arrest warrant were dropped.’ responding
'That doesn't mean he's innocent of those
charges.' Using the same ‘logic’ anyone who is not prosecuted for a crime
is still to be considered potentially guilty. In other words we are all
suspects.
In fact Assange has never
been charged but Sarkar's damning comments on a whistleblower facing the
wrath of the US state plays extremely well with 'mainstream' gatekeepers
selecting BBC guests and Guardian contributors. Sarkar deleted the
tweet smearing Assange, not because she regretted her appalling comments, but
because 'ugly stuff defending sexual
assault itself has been turning up in my work inbox' from 'men'. On April
11, Media Lens tweeted:
'"Whatever
you think of [Assange]..." means, "Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of
*them*. I'm not rejecting the respectable, mainstream narrative."'
One day later Owen Jones, Labour’s soft Zionist witchhunter
wrote
in the Guardian 'Whatever you think
of Julian Assange, his extradition to the US must be opposed'
The Guardian's George Monbiot tweeted: ‘'Whether or not you like Assange's politics
(I don't), or his character (ditto)...' Media Lens responded 'George, how much time have you spent with
Assange and his unpleasant character?' There was no reply! Almost alone the
Guardian's Ewen MacAskill commented:
'US did not waste
any time putting in extradition request for Assange. Terrible precedent if
journalist/publisher ends up in US jail for Iraq war logs and state department
cables.'
 |
| At least the Wall Street Journal has the merit of honesty |
Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal at least had the
virtue of honesty, unlike the fake humour merchants of the Guardian, BBC and
ITV:
 |
| It is one of life's mystery why even the Guardian employs someone who not only has nothing to say but who can't even work out how to say it |
'Julian Assange has done much harm to American
interests over the last decade, and on Thursday the WikiLeaks founder moved a
large step closer to accountability in a U.S. court.'
Exposing just a glimpse of the US killing machine in
Iraq means that Assange is one step nearer to being ‘accountable’ to these mass
murderers. Somehow I don’t think such a ‘principle’ was part of the juridicial
principles laid down at Nuremburg post-war.
 |
| Prostitute politicians and their tame press use 'feminist' arguments in support of imperialism's revenge on Assange |
That is what the prostitute journalists of the
Guardian and political prostitutes such as Jess Phillips and Stephen Kinnock
desire.
As Glenn
Greenwald commented:
'If
you're cheering Assange's arrest based on a US extradition request, your allies
in your celebration are the most extremist elements of the Trump
administration, whose primary and explicit goal is to … punish WL for exposing
war crimes.'
If the smears about Assange are fake, what is driving them?
A clue is provided in a tweet by
Glenn Greenwald:
'The only 2 times I can remember establishment liberals like
@HillaryClinton... uniting with and cheering Trump Admin is when (a) he bombed
Syria and (b) they indicted Assange... That says a lot about their values.'
It is these same 'values' which are driving the
attempts to destroy Corbyn.
John Pilger described
James Ball as a 'despicable
journalist'; a 'collaborator' with
those in power who have been attacking WikiLeaks and Assange. Ball has
repeatedly stated
that he opposes Assange's extradition to the US. But for years he depicted
him extremely unfavourably, and continues to
disparage Assange as 'a dangerous and
duplicitous asshole' after his arrest. You might want to ask him whether he still stands by this poison.
 |
| This was a massive story but the Guardian has refused to give its source even the most elementary solidarity |
The
Guardian’s treachery is inexcusable given that Assange supplied them with scoops.
It demonstrates the difference between a campaigning radical journalism based
on integrity, principles and a code of ethics and the faux radicalism of a
‘liberal’ establishment rag, eager to demonstrate its loyalty to the British
state. In The Guardian's
war on Assange Pilger
wrote about how
 |
| The obvious question, unwelcome to whom and why, is of course not answered by this trio of trivials assuaging their bad consciences |
 |
| Luke Harding wrote a book on the basis of Wikileaks revelations - Assange's reward was being called a useful idiot - which in a sense he was |
‘The Guardian has
exploited the work of Assange and WikiLeaks in what its previous editor called
"the greatest scoop of the last 30 years". The paper creamed off
WikiLeaks' revelations and claimed the accolades and riches that came with
them.
With not a penny going to Julian
Assange or to WikiLeaks, a hyped Guardian book led to a lucrative Hollywood
movie. The book's authors, Luke Harding and David Leigh, turned on their
source, abused him and disclosed the secret password Assange had given the
paper in confidence, which was designed to protect a digital file containing
leaked US embassy cables.
 |
| The Guardian's Fake News Story neither Retracted or Defended |
On 27th November 2018, the
Guardian published "Manafort
held secret talks with Assange in Ecuadorian embassy"
by Luke Harding. Paul Manafort
was Trump’s Campaign
Manager who has since been gaoled.
This story was clearly designed to discredit Assange yet it is entirely false. Fake
news. The Guardian has provided
no evidence for it, yet it has refused to retract it. In an interview
with the Observer, Glenn Greenwald, who used to work for the Guardian, said
 |
| Paul Manafort |
The Guardian’s happy to be used
...if you publish something like a totally fake story, there are so many
benefits to it and almost no consequences. ...If you look at Luke Harding’s
traffic metrics, they went through the roof. That’s an incentive scheme to
continue to do shitty journalism.
In alert
on the Assange arrest, Media Lens wrote:
No shred of evidence has ever
been produced for this claim, which WikiLeaks and Manafort have both vehemently
denied, and the story has been widely regarded as fake from virtually the hour
of its publication. Luke Harding, the lead journalist on the story, and his
editors Paul Johnson and Katharine Viner, have never apologised or retracted
the story; nor have they responded to the many challenges about it.
Below are
just a few of the Guardian headlines that the excellent 5 filters website
has compiled. There is also an excellent summary of the Guardian’s farrago of
nonsense in Assange
Arrest - Part 1: 'So Now He's Our Property'. As 5 Filters says, ‘If you haven't already, it really is time
to Dump the Guardian and support independent media instead.’ And I would
say that if you are one of the million people reputed to be giving money to the
Guardian to keep it from installing a pay wall, please give to more worthy
causes. The Guardian is just a more sophisticated version of The Times.
Twitter
reactions to the Guardian's campaign against Assange include:
It's time we stopped being fooled.
The state-corporate interests trying to destroy Assange are the same interests
trying to destroy Corbyn. They aren't motivated by concern for women's rights,
or anti-semitism, any more than they were by Iraqi or Syrian WMD, or Libyan
massacres.
Mark Curtis, British historian (@markcurtis30)
Guardian is running a smear
campaign against J.Assange, falsely linking him/Wikileaks to the Kremlin. This
article by @undercoverinfo1 precisely documents it.
Don’t fall for it: Guardian is playing a particular role in service of the
state. Guilty
by innuendo: the Guardian campaign against Julian Assange that breaks all the
rules
Matt Kennard, journalist (@KennardMatt)
The treatment of Julian Assange
by the Guardian has been so disgusting its beyond words. He took all the risk.
Will probably never experience freedom again. And they just collected their
awards and turned the newspaper into one big attack sheet. No campaign to free
him. Nothing.
New Labour’s
Attack on Assange
Whereas
Jeremy Corbyn and Dianne Abbot have taken a principled stance in opposition to
the extradition of Assange, the same cannot be said of the claque of New Labour
surrounding them.
 |
| 'feminist' arguments are used to justify war and attack those opposed to war - they are the equivalent of suffragettes who gave out white feathers to men who wouldn't serve in WWI |
Labour’s
racist ‘feminists’, Stella Creasy and Jess Phillips have sponsored
a letter from more than 70 Labour parliamentarians calling for Assange to
be extradited to Sweden on rape allegations. This is an attempt to muddy the
waters. Sweden has withdraw all such charges.
In
the second place it is certain as certain can be, as former Ambassador Craig
Murray wrote,
that the original allegations were entirely spurious and that Assange is
innocent of the charge of rape
 |
| The Guardian's pathetic argument for Assange to give up assumes that Wikileaks exposure of US wars crimes was to do with 'the rule of law' - where is the court that is willing to prosecute George W Bush and Tony Blair? |
Instead
of taking a principle position that you don’t deport journalists into the hands
of the US ‘Justice’ system, Kinnock, Creasy and Phillips, prefer to let Sweden do
their dirty work. Their behaviour is shameful and despicable.
What Labour’s Right will not do is take a
principled stance against US Foreign Policy as Assange and Chelsea Manning have
done. Manning is currently imprisoned
in the US for refusing to testify to a secret grand jury. Let it not be
forgotten that it was as a result of Wiki
leaks that we came to learn of the horrific attack on civilians by a US
helicopter that led to 18 people being murdered, including two Reuters journalists.
Even the death of journalists at the hands of the US war machine makes no
impression on servile creatures like Kinnock and Creasy. When they say ‘We do not presume
guilt, of course’
then that is precisely what they are doing except they don’t have the guts to admit
that their real motives are to deliver Assange into the hands of the United
States ‘Justice’ system.
Perhaps the last words should be left to the Guardian/Observer’s
Nostradamus Nick Cohen. The man who predicted
before the last election that the Tories would
‘tear them [Corbyn’s Labour] to pieces.... Will
there be 150, 125, 100 Labour MPs by the end of the flaying? My advice is to
think of a number then halve it.
 |
| Presumably Nick Cohen is one of these 'real seekers of truth' about the Iraq War which he supported? As Private Eye used to say 'pass the sick bag Alice' |
Cohen
displays the same perspicacity in Definition
of paranoia: supporters of Julian Assange where he informs us that:
Greenwald
and the rest of Assange's supporters do not tell us how the Americans could
prosecute the incontinent leaker.... the First Amendment to the US constitution
is the finest defence of freedom of speech yet written. The American Civil
Liberties Union thinks it would be unconstitutional for a judge to punish
Assange.
The authorities
can threaten the wretched Bradley Manning and hold him in solitary confinement
because he was a serving soldier when he passed information to Assange. But
WikiLeaks was in effect a newspaper. From the 1970s, when the New York Times
printed the Pentagon
Papers, to today's accounts of secret prisons and the bugging of US
citizens, the American courts "have made clear that the First Amendment
protects independent third parties who publish classified information"....
But why would they bother to imprison him when he is making such a good job of
discrediting himself?
 |
| Presumably support every war going and demonising Muslims ala Trump are the stuff of modern liberalism |
This is what the Guardian today calls journalism. Nick Cohen, a former socialist, is now a monotonous
Islamaphobe and a cheer leader for any war that is on offer.
We should also not forget that Wikileaks have provided important
information on the US-Israeli relationship, which would have remain hidden
under a cloak of secrecy but for Assange and Chelsea Manning’s bravery. This
alone is a rebuttal to the fawning obeisance and sycophancy of the Suzanne
Moores, Nick Cohens and James Balls, Kinnocks, Philips and Sarkars to the
powers that be.
Tony Greenstein
 |
| Just as US feminists urged support for the Afghan war so today's New Labour luvvies insist that Trump's desire to extradite Assange is really about rape |
Craig Murray
I am slightly updating and reposting this from 2012
because the mainstream media have ensured very few people know the detail of
the “case” against Julian Assange in Sweden. The UN Working Group ruled that
Assange ought never to have been arrested in the UK in the first place because
there is no case, and no genuine investigation. Read this and you will know
why.
The other thing not widely understood is there is NO JURY in a rape
trial in Sweden and it is a SECRET TRIAL. All of the evidence, all of the
witnesses, are heard in secret. No public, no jury, no media. The only public
part is the charging and the verdict. There is a judge and two advisers
directly appointed by political parties. So you never would get to understand
how plainly the case is a stitch-up. Unless you read this.
There are so many inconsistencies in Anna Ardin’s accusation of sexual assault against Julian Assange.
But the key question which leaps out at me – and which strangely I have not
seen asked anywhere else – is this:
Why did Anna Ardin not warn Sofia Wilen?
On 16 August, Julian Assange had sex with Sofia Wilen. Sofia had become
known in the Swedish group around Assange for the shocking pink cashmere
sweater she had worn in the front row of Assange’s press conference. Anna Ardin
knew Assange was planning to have sex with Sofia Wilen. On 17 August, Ardin texted a friend who
was looking for Assange:
“He’s not here. He’s planned to
have sex with the cashmere girl every evening, but not made it. Maybe he
finally found time yesterday?”
Yet Ardin later
testified that just three days earlier, on 13 August, she had been sexually
assaulted by Assange; an assault so serious she was willing to try (with great
success) to ruin Julian Assange’s entire life. She was also to state that this
assault involved enforced unprotected sex and she was concerned about HIV.
If Ardin really believed that on 13 August Assange had forced
unprotected sex on her and this could have transmitted HIV, why did she make no
attempt to warn Sofia Wilen that Wilen was in danger of her life? And why was
Ardin discussing with Assange his desire for sex with Wilen, and texting about
it to friends, with no evident disapproval or discouragement?
Ardin had Wilen’s contact details and indeed had organised her
registration for the press conference. She could have warned her. But she
didn’t.
Let us fit that into a very brief survey of the whole Ardin/Assange
relationship. .
11 August: Assange arrives in Stockholm for a press conference organised
by a branch of the Social Democratic Party.
Anna Ardin has offered her one bed flat for him to stay in as she will
be away.
13 August: Ardin comes back early. She has dinner with Assange and they
have consensual sex, on the first day of meeting. Ardin subsequently alleges
this turned into assault by surreptitious mutilation of the condom.
14 August: Anna volunteers to act as Julian’s press secretary. She sits
next to him on the dais at his press conference. Assange meets Sofia Wilen
there.
‘Julian wants to go to a crayfish
party, anyone have a couple of available seats tonight or tomorrow? #fb’
This attempt to find a crayfish party fails, so Ardin organises one
herself for him, in a garden outside her flat. Anna and Julian seem good
together. One guest hears Anna rib Assange that she thought “you had dumped me” when he got up from
bed early that morning. Another offers to Anna that Julian can leave her flat
and come stay with them. She replies:
“He can stay with me.”
15 August Still at the crayfish party with Julian, Anna tweets:
‘Sitting outdoors at 02:00 and
hardly freezing with the world’s coolest smartest people, it’s amazing! #fb’
Julian and Anna, according to both their police testimonies, sleep again
in the same single bed, and continue to do so for the next few days. Assange tells
police they continue to have sex; Anna tells police they do not. That evening,
Anna and Julian go together to, and leave together from, a dinner with the
leadership of the Pirate Party. They again sleep in the same bed.
16 August: Julian goes to have sex with Sofia Wilen: Ardin does not warn
her of potential sexual assault.
Another friend offers Anna to take over housing Julian. Anna again
refuses.
20 August: After Sofia Wilen contacts her to say she is worried about
STD’s including HIV after unprotected sex with Julian, Anna
takes her to see Anna’s friend, fellow Social Democrat member, former
colleague on the same ballot in a council election, and campaigning feminist
police officer, Irmeli Krans. Ardin tells Wilen the police can compel Assange
to take an HIV test. Ardin sits in throughout Wilen’s unrecorded – in breach of
procedure – police interview. Krans prepares a statement accusing Assange of
rape. Wilen refuses to sign it.
21 August Having heard Wilen’s interview and Krans’ statement from it,
Ardin makes her own police statement alleging Assange has surreptiously had
unprotected sex with her eight days previously.
Some days later: Ardin produces a broken condom to the police as
evidence; but a forensic examination finds no traces of Assange’s – or anyone
else’s – DNA on it, and indeed it is apparently unused.
No witness has come forward to say that Ardin complained of sexual
assault by Assange before Wilen’s Ardin-arranged interview with Krans – and
Wilen came forward not to complain of an assault, but enquire about STDs. Wilen
refused to sign the statement alleging rape, which was drawn up by Ardin’s
friend Krans in Ardin’s presence.
It is therefore plain that one of two things happened:
Either
Ardin was sexually assaulted with unprotected sex, but failed to warn
Wilen when she knew Assange was going to see her in hope of sex.
Ardin also continued to host Assange, help him, appear in public and
private with him, act as his press secretary, and sleep in the same bed with
him, refusing repeated offers to accommodate him elsewhere, all after he
assaulted her.
Or
Ardin wanted sex with Assange – from whatever motive.. She
“unexpectedly” returned home early after offering him the use of her one bed
flat while she was away. By her own admission, she had consensual sex with him,
within hours of meeting him.
She discussed with Assange his desire for sex with Wilen, and appears at
least not to have been discouraging. Hearing of Wilen’s concern about HIV after
unprotected sex, she took Wilen to her campaigning feminist friend, policewoman
Irmeli Krans, in order to twist Wilen’s story into a sexual assault – very easy
given Sweden’s astonishing “second-wave feminism” rape laws. Wilen refused to
sign.
At the police station on 20 August, Wilen texted a friend at 14.25 “did not want to put any charges against JA
but the police wanted to get a grip on him.”
At 17.26 she texted that she was “shocked
when they arrested JA because I only wanted him to take a test”.
The next evening at 22.22 she texted “it was the police who fabricated the charges”.
Ardin then made up her own story of sexual assault. As so many friends
knew she was having sex with Assange, she could not claim non-consensual sex.
So she manufactured her story to fit in with Wilen’s concerns by alleging the
affair of the torn condom. But the torn condom she produced has no trace of
Assange on it. It is impossible to wear a condom and not leave a DNA trace.
Conclusion
I have no difficulty in saying that I firmly believe Ardin to be a liar.
For her story to be true involves acceptance of behaviour which is, in the
literal sense, incredible.
Ardin’s story is of course incredibly weak, but that does not matter.
Firstly, you were never supposed to see all this detail. Rape trials in Sweden
are held entirely in secret. There is no jury, and the government appointed
judge is flanked by assessors appointed directly by political parties. If
Assange goes to Sweden, he will disappear into jail, the trial will be secret,
and the next thing you will hear is that he is guilty and a rapist.
Secondly, of course, it does not matter the evidence is so weak, as just
to cry rape is to tarnish a man’s reputation forever. Anna Ardin has already
succeeded in ruining much of the work and life of Assange. The details of the
story being pathetic is unimportant.
By crying rape, politically correct opinion falls in behind the line
that it is wrong even to look at the evidence. If you are not allowed to know
who the accuser is, how can you find out that she worked with CIA-funded
anti-Castro groups in Havana and Miami?
Finally, to those useful idiots who claim that the way to test these
matters is in court, I would say of course, you are right, we should trust the
state always, fit-ups never happen, and we should absolutely condemn the
disgraceful behaviour of those who campaigned for the Birmingham
Six.
Assange in a
government vehicle following his arrest on April 11, 2019. Getty images.
Yesterday the New York Times published a juicy piece
about Democratic Party apparatchik Neera Tanden that included a revelation from the Wikileaks dump
of documents from the Democratic National Committee in 2016: Tanden hosted
Benjamin Netanyahu for a fawning interview at her thinktank, the Center for
American Progress, even as Netanyahu was trying to undermine President Obama’s
Iran deal, so she could recruit a pro-Israel board member, Jonathan Lavine, who
gave the organization $1 million last year.
The Times’s reliance on Wikileaks to provide important information about
our political process is a timely reminder of the public role of the man
dragged out of the Ecuadorian embassy last Thursday, headed for criminal proceedings
related to his
obtaining and publishing government documents. Julian Assange is a
journalistic source. I’ve been in the news business for a long time and I’ve
always been told to protect sources. And by the way, not all these sources had
great character or reputation. That wasn’t the point. The First Amendment
protected news gathering, and sources are a critical element of the process.
The value I can add to the Assange debate is to convey to readers how
much his organization Wikileaks has contributed to our understanding of the
special relationship between the U.S. and Israel. I will not itemize every
revelation we’ve published that we got off Wikileaks, we’d be here all day. But
I do want to convey the range and depth of these revelations. In every case
these were important reports about how officials and public figures worked
behind closed doors to make sure that Israel and its interests stayed at the
forefront of US deliberations. We would not have that understanding without
Assange. Full stop. You can say anything about his personality or his support
for Trump, that’s not the issue.
Apropos of yesterday’s Times report, the 2016 dump from the DNC itemized
numerous collaborations between the Clinton campaign and pro-Israel donors to
shape policy when she got to the White House. I’ll get to them in a minute.
First, some earlier documents.
This 2009 cable
from the State Department quoted Netanyahu — forget about his lip service
to two states — saying he was only willing to give Palestinians a Bantustan: “a Palestinian state must be demilitarized,
without control over its air space and electro-magnetic field, and without the
power to enter into treaties or control its borders.”
This 2008 Wikileaks cable established the
State Department’s own understanding of the cruelty of the Israeli policy
toward Gaza: to staunch the banking system to keep Gaza on the “brink of collapse.”
Israeli officials have confirmed to econoffs on multiple occasions that
they intend to keep the Gazan economy on the brink of collapse without quite
pushing it over the edge…
This cable showed that the State Department had publicly
lied about its response to an Israeli hit in Dubai in February 2010 that
Dubai was angered about, as State sought to protect Israel.
In 2011 Wikileaks showed that the U.S. under Obama was deeply enmeshed
in the United Nations response to the Gaza slaughter of ’08-’09, including
behind the scenes efforts to stifle the Goldstone Report so it wouldn’t get to
the International Criminal Court. Foreign Policy reported
that story under the title “Special Relationship.”
The new documents, though consistent with public U.S. statements at the
time opposing a U.N. investigation into Israeli military operations, reveal in
extraordinary detail how America wields its power behind closed doors at the
United Nations. They also demonstrate how the United States and Israel were
granted privileged access to highly sensitive internal U.N. deliberations on an
“independent” U.N. board of inquiry into the Gaza war, raising questions about
the independence of the process.
Yes, in one
of those cables, Ambassador Susan Rice called U.N. Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon three times on one day, May 4, 2009, to block a recommendation by the
U.N. to carry out a “sweeping inquiry”
into war crimes by Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants. She said that
the recommendation far exceeded the legitimate scope of an investigation, and
set a “bad precedent.” Ban Ki-moon
then assured her that his staff was “working
with an Israeli delegation” on revisions of the inquiry’s mandate.
This 2006 State Department cable, released
in 2011, showed that the U.S. State Department was privately expressing
sharp reservations about fascistic currents in Israeli political life, even as
the U.S. government was holding its tongue about these trends. The cable was
subtitled: RIGHT-WING LIEBERMAN UNABASHEDLY
ADVOCATES TRANSFER OF ISRAELI ARABS. That cable includes government minister
Avigdor Lieberman’s endorsement of the idea to strip Palestinians of their
citizenship if they wouldn’t swear a loyalty oath.
In 2010, Wikileaks published cables from the State Department reflecting
the view that there was growing
distrust of the U.S. globally because of our close alliance with Israel. As
Josh Ruebner wrote:
In an explosive WikiLeaks revelation, Maj. Gen. Amos Gilad, the head of
the Political Military Bureau of Israel’s Ministry of Defense, while discussing
Israeli requests for U.S. military aid,
“acknowledged the sometimes difficult position the U.S. finds itself in
given its global interests, and conceded that Israel’s security focus is so
narrow that its QME [Qualitative Military Edge] concerns often clash with
broader American security interests in the region,”
according to the State Department.
Fast forward to the 2016 political race. Wikileaks showed that the
special relationship was alive and well and influencing the Clinton campaign.
DNC chair Debbie
Wasserman Schultz wondered if Bernie Sanders believes in God. “The Israel stuff is disturbing,” she
wrote, when she was supposed to be a referee of the process (and later resigned
over the widely-reported email).
Hillary Clinton made a host of promises to megadonor Haim Saban under
the prodding of Saban and her Israel liaison guy, Stu Eizenstat. She would come
out against Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), so as to balance her
support for the Iran deal. She would make a publicized
phone call to Malcolm Hoenlein of the rightwing Conference of Presidents of
Major American Jewish Orgs to indicate that she was going to turn the page on
Obama’s difficult relationship with Netanyahu. Eizenstat warned the campaign
that “in Israel there is wall-to-wall
opposition” to the Iran Deal– as if anyone should care what Israelis think!
(Yes, ask Ilhan Omar.) Eizenstat met with Netanyahu and conveyed his counsel to
Clinton: to
“attack, attack, attack” BDS. Oh and Clinton should oppose the
Obama administration’s rumored efforts to pass a UN Security Council
resolution against settlements. (Obama did her the service of waiting till the
election was over on that one.)
Netanyahu must be invited to the White House as soon as Clinton gets
there herself: “Bibi should be
invited for early talks on how the partnership with Israel can be strengthened
to combat Iran and Israel’s other avowed enemies,” Eizenstat counseled.
The importance of these leaks is that they documented in riveting detail
an important (and negative) force in U.S. policymaking, the depth and extent of
Israel’s influence at the highest levels. Return to Neera Tanden and the Iran
Deal. The Democratic Party’s own disavowals of that deal alongside Netanyahu
played an important role in its destruction.
We wouldn’t know all this without Julian Assange. I hope that other
reporters and editors stand up for that work in the days to come.
A forthcoming book from OR books edited by Tariq Ali and Margaret Ratner
Kunstler is sure to make related points. It is to include chapters by Noam
Chomsky, Charles Glass, Chris Hedges and Angela Richter among others.
The Guardian's Bile Compiled
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| Nick Cohen's argument - strange that its Trump who wants Assange to be extradited |
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| Does the Guardian manufacture these columnists and their uni message to order? |
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| The Guardian's veteran right-wing columnist Patrick Wintour repeats the nonsensical claims of Ecuador's repressive President |
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