The Obvious Dirty Dealings Behind Julian Assange’s Arrest
Kit Knightly
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, left, and Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno exchange looks during the delivery of a final statement at the government palace in Quito, Ecuador, Thursday, June 28, 2018. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa)
The US has been planning to have Julian Assange handed over for a longtime, that much is obvious. Mike Pence, the Vice President, was visiting Ecuador last year, notionally to discuss the Venezuela situation, and trade. But it was fairly obvious at the time, and even more so now, that they were discussing the details of Assange being handed over to UK authorities, and eventually extradited to the US.
“Trade”, indeed.
In terms of quid pro quo, the situation is clear-cut – In February, Ecuador got a $4.2 BILLION loan approved by the International Monetary Fund (amongst other pay-outs). Reuters reported on February 19th of this year:
Ecuador has reached a $4.2 billion staff-level financing deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), President Lenin Moreno said on Wednesday, as the Andean country grapples with a large fiscal deficit and heavy external debt.
The country will also receive $6 billion in loans from multilateral institutions including the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the CAF Andean development bank…
So, less than 2 months ago, it was announced Ecuador was going to receive over 10 billion dollars of loans. Where all that money will eventually end up is anyone’s guess, it certainly isn’t being spent on infrastructure or state enterprise:
Moreno has begun to implement an austerity plan that includes layoffs of workers at state-owned companies and cuts to gasoline subsidies, also plans to find a private operator for state-run telecoms company CNT and other state-owned firms.
President Moreno has already been the subject of numerous corruption accusations. So these “loans”, nominally for “[creating] work opportunities for those who have not yet found something stable”, could more realistically be described as “a pay-off”.
More than just money, Lenin Moreno has been gifted something all insecure third-world leaders crave: Western approval.
The Economist ran a story on April 12th, the day after Assange was arrested, praising Lenin Moreno’s economic policies, and blaming the previous administration for the “mess” that Moreno has to clear ups. (Of course, the idea that Moreno is handling the economy brilliantly, but somehow also needs over $10 billion dollars in loans is never addressed. A tiny logical contradiction compared with the nonsense the MSM dish-up on a daily basis).
The basic structure of the give-and-take of this situation is fairly obvious.
Less on the nose, but still definitely present, is the slow-burn media-based campaign of defamation and smears directed at Assange. A campaign designed to weaken public support for him and lessen the potential outcry if/when the UK handed him to US authorities, who famously use “enhanced interrogation” on suspects.
Last October, just three months after Pence’s Ecuador visit, an Ecuadorian government memo was “leaked” claiming that Assange had bad personal hygiene habits, was hacking people’s electrical devices, and neglecting his cat. These charges, cynically designed to make Assange a figure of ridicule, got massive play in the media. The Guardian, ever at the vanguard of sticking the boot in on Assange, ran a gleeful opinion piece mocking him. As did many other publications.
Assange, who had his internet access shut-off in March of last year, was unable to defend himself.
To this day we have no way of knowing if there is any veracity to this “leaked” memo, but real or not, it served both to belittle Assange in the public mind, and provide Ecuador with an excuse to get rid of him (they set up “rules”, claim Assange wasn’t following them and THAT’s why they kicked him out – not the 10 billion dollars they got from international financial institutions).
The media are, of course, complicit in this lie.
Various outlets, from the Guardian, to CNN to the Australian have written “explainer” articles with headlines such as: ‘Rude, ungrateful and meddling’: why Ecuador turned on Assange.
Because – you know – ‘rude and ‘ungrateful’ people don’t deserve to have their human rights respected. There’s probably a clause in the UN charter to that effect.
Every step of this ignoble process, so far, has been based on lies. Let’s list them.
Lie #1: Assange hs been and is attacked as a “Russian agent” and “Putin’s stooge”. A “breaking news” story for the Guardian, written by an erstwhile plagiarist and a convicted forger, claimed Assange had worked with Paul Manafort to swing the US election for Trump.
No evidence for these claims has been supplied. It remains to date nothing more than a baseless allegation, and WikiLeaks is in the process of suing the Guardian over it. This lie paints Assange as an “enemy combatant”, and will be used to justify whatever happens to him.
Lie #2: Let’s all recall that, for months, we were told the US didn’t want Assange, that “the only barrier to him leaving the embassy was pride”. WikiLeaks claims that US had sealed indictments waiting for Assange were dismissed as “conspiracy theories”.
Not true. Not any of it. The secret indictments were leaked, proving WikiLeaks correct. (Ecuador is – shocking – claiming that they weren’t aware there any extradition orders for Mr Assange before they released him to the UK police. This risible assertion has gone totally unchallenged in the mainstream media.)
Lie #3: Just one week ago, the Ecuadorian government claimed they had NO plans to kick Assange out, and that WikiLeaks lied when they claimed as much.
They released Assange to UK police just six days later.
Equally obnoxious and dishonest is the ‘corporate concern trolling’ that allows faux-liberals to take up the craven position of “qualified support”, such as:
“You can think Assange is a liar, fascist and misogynist, but still think he shouldn’t be extradited”
This is the stance adopted by folks like Owen Jones in the Guardian, a position which claims to support one course of action, but is actually covertly arguing for the opposite. Damning Assange with the pretence of faint praise.
And ‘identity politics’ is also playing its part here – displaying its usefulness in clogging up public debate with shallow finger-pointing and Crucible-esque accusations of moral impurity. (Jones labels anyone who doesn’t believe the accusations against Assange “a misogynist”).
Suzanne Moore, the epitome of the liberal hypocrite, wrote a column for the New Statesmen talking quite a lot about totally unproven accusations of “molestation”, but breezing over the very-much-proven crimes against humanity.
Meanwhile seventy UK MPs, including “people’s champion” Jess Philips, and John Woodcock (who quit Labour over accusations of sexually inappropriate behaviour), signed a letter to Sajid Javid demanding Assange be handed over to Sweden to face “justice”. A position marred only by the fact that Sweden haven’t actually asked for him yet. (This was aimed at Corbyn and Diane Abbott, whose support for Assange will be turned against them, and used to label Labour as being “soft on sexual predators” or “not supporting women” etc).
But this is all distraction and obfuscation – keeping the totally discredited accusations in the headlines, whilst avoiding the actual truth, which is:
Julian Assange was arrested for publishing evidence of US war crimes, after the US government bribed the Ecuadorian government to break international law.
That is what happened. And anyone who uses lies and distraction to deny this truth is on the wrong side of history.
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what is needed is to recognize that human authoritative rights are different from civil authoritative rights.
Civil authorities are instituted for many worldly purposes, but no civil authority has the right to abuse, infringe or ignore a persons individual, inalienable human rights? Each set of rights stands separate from and independent of the other. Civic authority arises from humanity by selection and circumstance. All humans are possessed of human rights, only a few humans are empowered with civil authority and charged to get others to perform civic duties.
In order to protect and enforce “rights” vs “authority/duty” some means is necessary to enforce the rights/authority/duties if they are to exist at all. Civil matters deal with corruption, education, cultural, social issues, criminal misdeeds, security, institutional and corporate management, and the like while human matters deal with abuse, infringement or denial of a persons individual, inalienable human rights.
No authority, civil or military, should be allowed to infringe human rights. Like wise no person should be allowed to offend authority or avoid a responsible civic duty. A person who has earned the status of a trained killer or a lying politician, has not earned the right to deny any human their rights as humans and no human has earned the right to deny a person of authority or to avoid a civic duty.
Civil authority has developed courts, jails, military apparatus, and laws to enforce its authority and to demand human attention to the performance of duty. But humans have no enforcement mechanisms to enforce human rights against civil authority. Until human rights are tended to by courts, jails, military apparatus, and laws, human rights will be like dog rights, the rights of a dog work until the master decides they don’t. . Basically, two systems of justice are needed to defend two different sets of values; the power of one chosen to lead humans<=set of values, and the rights of human subjected to the power of the chosen<=set of values. These two value systems are diametrically opposed. And, the opposite power should make the rules and judge the other accordingly.
Experience confirms that the civil system will not, and probably cannot, protect, defend and save human rights, but the civil system will enforce its authority and demand performance from humans as a duty, without limit.
Any all of humanity s\b authorized, protected and sufficiently empowered to put down, to incarcerate or to turn over to a court (a court independent of the civil courts) any person who uses a government, an institution, an organization, a conspiracy, a corporation, a group of humans or any other structure and functionality that manages human behavior as a weapon that infringes on the human rights of anyone.
Civil authorities that intend to, or who do, abuse human rights have no one to answer to..no court, no punishment to face. But, what if there were a human rights court, one powerful enough to enforce human rights? Humans, every one could be equally empowered to complain to the Human rights court and on complaint the court could meet and decide and punish..
Any human should be able to bring charges against any one in a position of power or authority for any alleged violation of the human rights of another. If a human rights court were empowered with jurisdiction limited to oversee those who govern, those who rule, those who supervise or those who direct humans or manage the behaviors of humans, other than themselves.
Of course, this "independent human rights court jurisdiction" and "right of any human to bring charges" extends to, and includes offenses by those who operate under the color of, or under the authority of, any institution, or any civil government, or an army, or any corporate group, or any whatever. It would be indifferent to those rights as to how the person to be charged came into possession of that authoritative power, or even how powerful the power is, all that would be needed for Human Rights Jurisdiction would be that a human would bring a charge, and the court would convert it into an indictment, and then investigate it, a hear a case, and decide guilt or innocence and direct a punishment for such violation of human rights. If this kind of thing were instituted there may not be so much war, so much poverty and so much suffering..
Example, If someone had charged Hitler, Churchill, Lenin or Roosevelt with a violation of human rights,
a human rights court removed them from their position of power over others, there would never have
been WWI or WWII.
Seems to me the Internet is a tool that is moving humanity to develop a human rights authority capable
to identify, deny and punish human rights offenders. No government on earth has ever denied any
human its rights: always the offenders have been those who operate under the color of government.
President Lenin Moreno on Assange’s aggression against the Republic of Ecuador:
Ecuador’s UK Ambassador on Assange:
https://thegrayzone.com/2019/04/14/lenin-moreno-julian-assange-wikileaks-ecuador/
When discussing this issue, we should draw attention to the facts WikiLeaks published, such as the “Collateral Murder” video: https://youtu.be/25EWUUBjPMo
Information about where it seems that Assamge will stand trial if extradited to US:
https://twitter.com/CassandraRules/status/1117508782102405121
(same judge in the same district who oversaw the cases of Snowden and Kiriakou, a CIA whistleblower, same judge who got the request from Assange’s lawyers to “unseal” the Assange case).
Is there no shit the Guardian will not publish – now they are parroting idiotic lies about Asssange setting up a spy operation in his broom cuboard.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/apr/14/assange-tried-to-use-embassy-as-centre-for-spying-says-ecuadors-moreno
The Equadorian leader after just receiving billions in loans said “We do not make decisions based on external pressures from any country,” (lol)
Lenín Moreno also said he had been given written undertakings from Britain that Assange’s fundamental rights would be respected and that he would not be sent anywhere to face the death penalty – a lifetime in solitary, yes, but even crazed neocons like Mike Pence or Elliot Abrams prefer to kill people in a covert way rather than delegate such tasks to a judicial executioner.
It’s not hard to see which is the right side of the line in this whole sorry affair, but ‘liberals’ at Guardian Towers continue to pump put out the usual effluence: first made up stories about collaborating with Manafort then ludicrous claims about Assange setting up a spy ring despite having no internet access – how on earth do they think he communicates, by carrier pigeon.
Concepts like research or investigative journalism seem completely alien to them.
“Concepts like research or investigative journalism seem completely alien to them”.
Even more disturbing is that, even if they can’t be bothered themselves to do any research or investigating, the obvious questions don’t even appear to occur to them. The Skripal case is another perfect example of that. But they are very good at labelling armchair investigators who have the audacity to highlight the questions for them as conspiracy theorists.
If they aren’t capable of recognising pertinent questions, never mind digging around to find answers, they should all admit that they are well and truly in the wrong profession.
““Concepts like research or investigative journalism seem completely alien to them [The guardian]”
Since when ‘bought journalism’ needs research or investigative work?
Things come to them ‘ready to eat’ on a plate
Steady on Harry! if the goons at the Guardian had to do any research or proper journalism they might actually have to write factual stories and report the truth.
That’s probably why the Guardian stop short of telling readers who Assange is actually spying for.
We’ll probably have to wait a few years before they grudingly accept there was no evidence he was spying for anyone – you know, just the Mueller inquiry, a debacle that humiliated most of America’s so called ‘liberal’ commentariat.
The broom cupboard spy centre can not in anyway compare with Julian’s cat being accused of spying. It sounds like a Trumpian fantasy. That is after a few cones.
What journalists employed in the corporate media do, in my long and tiresome experience, is ‘fit the facts’ around the narrative they want to tell and nothing can shake them out of it once the narrative framework has been established. The differences between them are minimal across the ‘spectrum’, basically only trivial ones of style, humour or language aimed at different target audiencs. ”Fitting the facts around the policy” sounds rather faimiiar doesn’t it, sounds awfully like the way the policy preparing the ground for the attack on Iraq was formed, because it is the same. It’s a process and a structure, really a culture within society and politics, and the media follows and applies the same framework, over and over again. First an enemy is identified, (….) fill in the individual, idea or country yourselves, then the language and arguments follow automatically.
One is struck by the uniformity of approach. The difference between the Sun and the Mail, and the Guardian and the BBC isn’t really very different, their all extremely critical of Assange and Wikileaks and rarely, if ever, allow anyone to question, criticise or defend the designated ‘enemy.’ Assange is vilified and demonised on a level usually reserved for foreign leaders we’re preparing to destroy; like Saddam Hussein, Ghadaffi, or the arch demon, Putin.
Owen Jones fills the post of career leftist, apparently only there to convince people that we don’t live in a virtual dictatorship where the opposition is totally silenced and marginalised. With ‘friends’ like Jones Assange doesn’t need enemies!
Things have gotten worse and worse and the few spaces allowed for alternative views have squeezed almost out of existance. The Guardian’s culled everyone who might have raised objections and drastically reduced the number of articles where Comment is Free is allowed, because way too many people were highly critical of the articles and knew much more about the subject, like Assange in Sweden, so, like me, they are repeatedly banned by the Guardian for breaching their pathetic standards, of stupidity and ignorance.
MichaelK:
Very compassionate of your part to think they do it cause of ‘stupidity’….
True,though stupidity does play its part Ramdan.
Julian Assange is the producer and creative director of “Collateral Murder”, with his dedication in the film: “This video is dedicated to the families of the people killed in this attack, and to all the victims of war whose fates remain unknown.” The video last integrally plus minus 17 minutes.
This film is free to download but almost impossible to have the 17 minutes complete, but you can download remakes of it, which distorts completely the original.
But… , But… also Mr. Assange is incredibly courageous to show on the screen, what seems without doubt shameless murder by 30mm (3 centimetres diameter) bullets, 25 per minute, when there is no shooting and danger for the gunship. An AH-64 Apache helicopter is the tool used by the US army to do it. When you look at the film attentively you see will that the gunship is safely hidden far away behind the walls and roofs of the houses, it peeps most of the time from above the roofs, well protected by its distance, again protected by the walls and the roofs of the houses, it fires with a very sophisticated and stable telescope, which crosshair facilitate the killings and destruction, this thanks to its appearance on very good monitors or screens in the gunship.
Was it only that! The bullets destroyed also scrupulously trucks, cars and lacerated the streets in thousands pieces. Debris littered everywhere, but not in the gunship. It seems not at all a problem for the US army to destroy the every day livelihood of ordinary people. After that, the pilot yet dare to ask if he is allowed to engage, forgetting everything about the total collateral destructions. We have been taught that collateral damage cannot be avoided by the US army, so should this mean that they have not at all sophisticated weapons?
The film “Collateral Murder” hurts beyond doubt and is now a classical for showing the horrors of war, but this is not a reason to put Mr. Assange beyond bars, a victim more of the Iraq war, of which he wanted to show the total inhumanity of such an invasion.
There was even not a reason to do this war. Mr. Sadam Hussein had not weapons of mass destruction, vainly searched after and afterwards proved nonexistent, except the little, is it a nut that a general putted on the desk at the UNO, pretending this was the proof for the mass destruction weapons that Iraq had?
We know today after 15 years that Iraq is totally destroyed with no freedom and no real democracy, which was promised by the US after three wears of war, or was this not the real reason to do it?
Free Mr. Assange!!! War, whatever war, it leads to the murder of millions innocents. Read again the dedication of the film of Mr. Assange “Collateral Murder”.
Free Mr. Assange!!! War, whatever war, it leads to the murder of millions innocents.!!!
I dunno, one gets weary. For close to ten years I’ve attempted to create a dialogue with those ‘progressive’ journalists at the Guardian and New Statesman who were writing total bullshit about Sweden and the sex allegations aimed at Assange.
It’s difficult to have a positive and factual dialogue with people who don’t even know that Sweden doesn’t have jury trials like one does in the UK and US. And this is just the beginning. Often one feels one is trying to explain very basic concepts to people who are a bit slow and dull yet have suddenly become ‘experts’ on Sweden and its laws, despite never having been there and not speaking the language. In this respedt it’s similar to their attitudes towards events in Ukraine. The less one knows the more certain their views are!
This is before one tries to explain, very slowly, that the two women involved, didn’t accuse Assange of raping them when they went to the police in Stockholm. Yet the Guardian insists this is the case and charlatans like Jess Philips still link Assange to rape and rape culture, whatever that really is! Våldtakt in Swedish means using violece to force a woman to have sex with you, in English this is called… ‘rape.’ Only the two women never claimed Assange used violence against them, so how on earth can he be guilty of ‘rape’? However, it’s impossible to get journalists to understand this. They also seem totally unclear about the difference between claims and allegations and legal charges and due process. Loads of journalists seem to actually believe Assange has been charged with rape in Sweden. It’s like trying to tell a mob involved in a witch-hunt that witches don’t really exist and neither does the Devil.
The two women in Sweden think that Assange didn’t treat them properly or with enough respect, but to change this into a story about rape, sexual violence, is something else entirely.
Phillips says ‘I was disappointed by the Labour party’s official response, which didn’t even doff its cap to the nuance of a situation that also involves multiple accusations of serious sexual crimes’, yes, of course you are disappointed Jess, but that’s what happens when you invent the kind of stawman that gets feminism a bad name (because of the very thing you loudly complain about, lack of nuance).
If the sex crimes were so serious why did the first (female) prosecutor dismiss them out of hand, or more importantly why didn’t the women make such allegations themselves instead of legal representatives doing so on their behalf?
After all they both met up before going to the police while the female officer who took statements from the women did so despite the fact she was known to the first complainant, while an interview was conducted when both women were present (which, as the officer must have known is against standard operating procedure – statements should have been obtained seperately).
Assange was at large in Stockholm in several weeks after the initial allegations and was still being trailed by security services when he finally flew out of Sweden.
If, as Phillips suggests, ‘serious sexual crimes’ were committed, why on earth did the spooks wave Assange off as he checked in at the airport (although they took his computer off him according to some reports).
One of the more bizarre elements in what is already a very questionable narrative is the story of the damaged condom.
As it stands Asssange is accused of continuing to have sex despite damage being inflicted to a condom although the incident was not so bad that the complainant asked Assange to leave the flat she was sharing with him.
No mention of the torn condom was made at the initial police interview but when Nye (the 2nd prosecutor) said ‘new evidence’ was required to reopen the case, hey presto the damaged prophylactic mysteriously appears!
For reasons we can only speculate about this implies the woman saved the condom for several weeks before handing it over to the authorities so DNA tests could be conducted (begging mind boggling questions about the storage of a soiled johnny in the intervening period).
None of Assange’s spunk was ever found on this potentially vital piece of forensic evidence but it did at least present Nye with the kind of leverage she required to reopen the case so she could pursue Assange.
It’s almost certain Phillips hasn’t got a clue about any of this but then again a fair amount of fourth wave feminism seems to be based on blind ideology rather than the kind of nuance which distinguishes one set of circumstances from another – which is, of course, somewhat ironic given that nuance is what Phillps demands on the front page of Britain’s primary anti-Assange platform.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/14/julian-assange-case-makes-clear-womens-rights-secondary-political-games
People like Phillps must carefully avoid doing any real research into stuff that helps them smear Corbyn.
It would be quite hard to know nothing at all about of the holes in the accusations if you took any interest in
political news. But for 70 MPs to be quite so ignorant is astonishing.
“But for 70 MPs to be quite so ignorant is astonishing.”
Seriously my friend, you flatter that rabble. I’m only astonished it wasn’t more of them. A lot of MPs are intellectually deficient promoters of themselves.
I very strongly suspect that many MPs have strong links to the secret security services in the UK.
And I would be unsurprised if many Blairite Labour MPs (such as Phillips) are actually Tory or security state plants put there to damage Labour and prevent a socialist government.
The Swedish term is ‘våldtäkt’ as a noun, and våldtaga, as a verb, literally to take by voilence.
One of the women was an ant-Castro fanatic with close links to US anti-cuba forces, quite possibly with CIA links and effectively a honeytrap operation, the other was seemingly a kind of Assange ‘groupie’ for want of a better word. The bottom line is the Americans threatened SÄPO, the Swedish intelligence service, to cut off intelligence sharing and similar unless they reopened the phony rape case. The Swedish Social Democrats are more Blairite than socialist these days, ever keen to brown tongue Americans to prove what loyal vassals they are. The Swedish government also contributes handsomely to the NATO war think tank Atlantic Council. So much for swedish neutrality.
That is why Assange was initially cleared and free to leave Sweden. Manning is now in custody again after refusing to testify AGAIN. The Swedish case could go away if the two women, who had been bragging on twitter or some such like about their Assange exploits, would just say – basta. We have said all we had to say and the matter is now closed for us.
I strongly suspect the role of people like Owen Jones, Ash Sarkar, etc, in British media is to lend ‘left’ credibility to establishment smears and deflections. Since last Thursday they have been wheeled out at every opportunity since to frame perceptions of wikileaks among left leaning members of the public. Just as they have spent the past several years breathing credibility into the right wing antisemitism smear of Corbyn, whom they support like a rope supports a hanging man.
A twitter user mentioned ‘the ornamental left’. Thought that was perfect.
People need to give up completely on the establishment Faux Left.
Don’t vote for them, don’t advocate for them, don’t give them any money.
They are total scum.
https://sputniknews.com/europe/201904141074115546-assange-dotcom-sweden-us-extradition/
The Swedish rape claims are utterly bogus.
It seems to me that the British government has spent inordinate sums funding the continual stakeout by police officers of Ecuador’s embassy since Mr Assange sought refuge there years ago.
The multi-billion dollar funding approval by the IMF could scarcely have been anything but a prelude and pre-condition to President Moreno of Ecuador to authorise and sanction the entry of British police on what is their sovereign territory to remove Mr Assange by force.
It also seems to me that as the British government is seeking future trade deals with the USA as a result of the Brexit shindig, it, too, is prepared with malice aforethought to adopt unprecedented measures in order to comply with the vindictive regime currently operating in America.
Clearly, this weak British government led by its equally weak Prime Minister who cannot even hold her own cabinet together is now between a rock and a hard place. It has its hands full embroiled with the way Brexit is turning out and sees a convenient end to this Assange affair by attempting to throw the responsibility on to the Swedish authorities. In that way the British government will be able to claim it didn’t have Mr Assange extradited to the USA, rather he was given to Sweden to deal with. I sincerely hope the Swedish authorities are alive to the fact they could be manipulated in this.
I am appalled by the seventy something MPs who have followed this line of Sweden is a more preferable place to extradite Mr Assange to than America. Up to now, as far as I’m aware, Mr Assange is not wanted in Sweden as the accusations against him were dropped years ago. I hope Sweden, as a nation, remains of that view. Mr Assange shouldn’t in that case be extradited to anywhere, but if push comes to shove I’ll bet the British government will provide an executive jet to any American city they choose without compunction.
Perhaps Shardlake, more Bexit followers and others who wish to trade with the USA should be aware that this is only possible outside of the European Union, under the GATT trading rules where a global secret organisation adminsters all proposed and actual trade, invariably in the USA’s favour it has proved?
A reflection of the USA boastful claims to be an exceptional state, perhaps ?
Whereas, under the EU Global trading rules the EU terms and tariffs are transparent to all EU member trading States, and potential disputes and rulings are subject to open proceedures and final process.
We know.
I wonder what would happen if Julian called out the US government and said, “Hey, Chelsea is clearly an agent, the video of gunning down of civilians is a fake and no doubt many other files are. You have faked this whole leaking business and therefore you are in no position to charge me with anything. And what’s more 9/11 was an easily proved inside conspiracy where death and injury were staged just like many, many other events and I have the evidence to prove it – in fact, you’ve advertised the evidence yourselves with the terrorists popping up alive, etc.” Wonder what would happen.
Here you go again, working to create ridicule of this community by way of your frequent and utterly bizarre “theories”.
Kit should just delete bollocks like that. His articles are among the clearest eyed and most carefully considered and evidenced you will find on a given issue. But every time I visit this site my impression of it is always fouled by clownshoe commenters, who are tolerated by the mods and most other commenters.
Sarge, sarge, how can you possibly suggest censorship. No censorship of comments makes Off-Guardian a bright, shining and extremely single beacon in our very dark MSM/alternative media world. As far as I know it’s the only medium that does not censor comments. Please do not suggest such a blasphemy. All opinions can easily be tolerated.
Well, that’s freedom of speech for you.
One man’s troll is another man’s truth teller.
If you think people are misinformed or talking bollocks just tell them.
Here’s my conspiracy theory.
Important and well visited alternative news sites with credible writers are gradually infiltrated and undermined by commenters paid to air ridiculous theories and lunatic fantasies.
Readers start to think, my god, have I been wrong all along, are these lunatics my fellow travellers?
I’m curious to know why you think that the evidence I present does not support my hypothesis, Frankly Speaking. Do you think that the information I purport of itself isn’t correct or rather that the information is correct but it doesn’t work as evidence to support my hypothesis? (My evidence being essentially the highly implausible Wikipedia entry on Chelsea Manning)
And what do you think is compelling evidence to support the claim that Chelsea Manning was a genuine leaker who leaked to Wikileaks and spent 7 years in jail or do you simply believe that the government/media story is correct simply because it comes from the government/media … or?
Your crap over ChCh was the first clue
Can you articulate what that crap is, reenmac, or is your critical faculty limited to the level of meaningless, dismissive hand wave of “crap”?
Flaxgirl:
I’ve seen your posts defending the idea of the ‘staging’ of major events in recent history,.but I honestly do not get where is all that going…
So, let’s accept that your theory is actually correct:
1- what’s the next logical cconclusion?
2- Does this ‘staging’ makes the ‘stagers’ not bad cause after all nobody die there? OR
3- Does the ‘staging’ makes the ‘stagers’ bad just because they lied?….or because they use their lie to start wars and the terror worlview we live in? OR…
4- you name it….
Thanks for your reply….and my apologies for digressing form the main topic of the article.
Hoaxing the population is by definition bad, Ramdan, and its purposes seem to include: an excuse, as you mention, to start war and to instil fear by fomenting disharmony between groups – the old Divide and Conquer technique from the ancient Romans (or, who knows, from even earlier) to better control us. No doubt there’s so very much more to it but I don’t know what that is.
Flaxgirl:
Thanks for your reply. We agree that hoaxing is specially bad when done by goverment and when done to start wars and the killing of millions.
But..then, the issue is “hoaxing” with the intent of influencing people minds and decisions. The real issue is the manipulation and the manipulators, regardless of the staging or not.
By focusing on how the manipulation happened, and the datails of the manipulation then the real focus is lost and we are entrapped on a discussion of which theory is the right one.
What good could you (we) get from such endeavor?
Isn’t this the actual “Divide and conquer”?
Isn’t it like playing the kid trying to figure out how the rabbit came out of the hat…and take 10-12 years to realize there was no magic…and the magician is gone with all the money?
Endorsement of ‘rape culture’ hmmm. Interesting to note that the city of Malmo is now considered to be the rape capital of Europe. Of course the identity of the rapists is not reported by the Swedish authorities and we know why. Sweden has an open door policy to ‘refugees’ from the middle-east. Just saying. Here’s what Swedish TV says
About 58% of men convicted in Sweden of rape and attempted rape over the past five years were born abroad, according to data from Swedish national TV.
But apparently Assange is responsible, not the real rapists.
Francis, I confess to knowing nothing about the situation of rape in Malmo and the rest of Scandinavia but unless the evidence is very clear (it might be difficult to evaluate though), I’d be rather circumspect about these claims. Wherever you see something that might work to foment disharmony between groups my advice is to be extremely suspicious – could it simply be Divide and Conquer-type propaganda that they drown us in?
I correspond with a guy with perhaps slightly anti-feminist inclinations who wrote indignantly about an English woman who’d claimed various men had raped her but it was only recognised she’d been lying after one of the alleged rapists had already served 2 years in jail. The story sounded suss to me and when I checked it out I wrote back to him with the following analysis:
https://www.news.com.au/world/europe/the-attention-seeking-woman-who-falsely-accused-15-men-of-rape/news-story/b3bcd1f5dacc0029239af404475d1509
In a victim impact statement Mr Cassim told the court he had been hugely effected by the false claim.
[Spelling error – should be “affected”. I know that spelling errors appear in the media anyway but poor grammar and spelling errors are a sign. It’s also the stiltedness of what people say.]
The Metropolitan Police said one of the rape allegations made to police by Beale in 2010 led to the conviction of a man, Mahad Cassim, who was jailed for seven years.
[Not jailed for seven years – assault allegedly in 2010 and conviction quashed in 2015. They could say “sentenced” for 7 years but not “jailed”.]
Her complaints led to Mahad Cassim serving two years in jail for having sex with her after she claimed to be a lesbian with “no desire” for men.
[Sloppy – he didn’t “have sex with her” nor rape her. Should say “for allegedly raping her”.]
[lesbian – in other stories she is referred to as “bisexual”]
The 25-year-old [Jemma] told police Mr Cassim raped her after offering to give her a lift home — but in fact she got out of the car and told him: “Get your pants down.”
[“In fact” she told him “Get your pants down”. Where is this fact derived from?”]
There is nothing that is convincing about this story. No explanation is given for why she was believed in the first place and why they got it wrong. Everyone knows that women cry rape falsely so we’d expect some sort of stringency but we are given nothing to explain where they weren’t sufficiently stringent in their acceptance of her claims and why they believed her.
Sweden is now the rape capital of the world, thanks to cultural enrichment from hundreds of thousands of third world rapefugees. The Swedish police have simply given up. They no longer even bother investigating violent rapes of very young children.
“Sweden is now the rape capital of the world.”
No evidence of course: just a casual assertion, unproven and unprovable, cursory and unexplained.
And then the main course: All is blamed upon refugees-‘rapefugees’ in Mark’s fascismspeak. At least it makes a change, though hardly a pleasant one, from the other side of this coin, anti-semitism.
The truth, obvious to all with enough brains to tie their shoelaces, is that people do not become refugees for fun. That those fleeing countries such as Honduras, Iraq, Libya or Syria generally do so as a very last resort. They tend to be hungry, homeless, jobless- they have usually been frightened, badly. Often they are sick or mourning the deaths of family members.
Those who employ their tired wit-‘cultural enrichment’- on these victims, for the most part of western imperialism, are like the charmers who set fire to homeless people in the streets.
About the only thing that can be said for commenters like Mark is that they display their moral decrepitude for all to see. And thus, like refugees, deserve our sympathy.
Good article Kit.
Expect nothing from the Guardian on the Assange story as they worry their heads about identity politics overlooking in the matter of Human Rights Abuses and War Crimes exposed by Wikileaks. My immediate concern is for Julian Assange is his safety in the British penal system. A notoriously corrupt and under-resourced system. For which his misdemeanour does not require incarceration.
Yesterday MofA raised the idea that a change of government i.e. Corbyn becoming PM could lead to a possible way out for Julian Assange although possible I think it is unlikely. You see the question to ask is Ray McGovern’s why is Julian Assange in jail while Christopher Steel is still walking free? And the answer is who you work for.
The other question that springs to mind is the – Skripals who made them disappear? Spoiler alert… it wasn’t the Russians.
But hey, Salisbury named best place to live in UK over novichok recovery! All in the kingdom is sunny. Look the other way not at the re-emergence of the Star Chamber!
Even if the Brits decided under a new government that they’d had enough of Julian he would not be safe. He could go home to Australia, possibly, and still be thrown to the wolves in Virginia by his own people. 5 eyes are still in existence.
Ecuador has been treated very badly by the US companies – and still they now lick a.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/04/12/to-be-or-not-to-be-a-zionist/
How unhinged could a President get with people around him telling him day and night he is the Messiah.?
How nuts is that.?
Forebodings galore I say.!
Have a musical day.
Thanks, Kit, (I feel as if I know you though I don’t) for this fine summing-up of cravenness. The identity politics of good “progressives” is especially stomach-turning.
Corbyn should dive in 100% pro-Assange right now – his support will surprise him, this disgusting onslaught is so obvious to so many people. Head to Belmarsh 12PM today to protest against the extradition which will surely end in his demise.
The title today in The Guardian “Failure to extradite Assange to Sweden would endorse ‘rape culture’, say women’s groups”, shows how much people in the the UK want him to be in Sweden. It has never been proven that Assange raped women! That he had sex seems suddenly abnormal for The Guardian, strange for the Guardian which advises, more than normal as newspaper on the topic. Is the real purpose not, to have him in Sweden, to avoid in history the story that the UK delivered him to the US?
The title today in The Guardian “Failure to extradite Assange to Sweden would endorse ‘rape culture’ …..
…. shows all the hallmarks disinformation campaigns and mind control tactics used by the likes of the CIA & Co.
Opinions of the feminist extremists about world politics contradict all healthy humanitarian approaches to woman-men relationships.
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2018-02-12/the-uks-hidden-role-in-assanges-detention/ Then there are these inconvenient facts ignored by the Guardian
According to a new release of emails between officials, the Swedish director of public prosecutions, Marianne Ny, wrote to Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service on 18 October 2013, warning that Swedish law would not allow the case for extradition to be continued. This was, remember, after Sweden had repeatedly failed to take up an offer from Assange to interview him in London, as had happened in 44 other extradition cases between Sweden and Britain.
Ny wrote to the CPS: “We have found us to be obliged to lift the detention order … and to withdraw the European arrest warrant. If so this should be done in a couple of weeks. This would affect not only us but you too in a significant way.”
Three days later, suggesting that legal concerns were far from anyone’s mind, she emailed the CPS again: “I am sorry this came as a [bad] surprise… I hope I didn’t ruin your weekend.”
These “rights groups” are controlled opposition with the usual university spies. When the daily mail pen the sun tells its viewers that people are outraged over something I think how can you be outraged over something you’ve only found out about. All these rights groups are intelligence asset NGO’s and are their to continue divide and conquer. The intelligence agencies do most of their recruiting at university’s so when a university women’s group starts opening it’s mouth I know it’s nonsense
I disagree! It is much more like gardening. Most organisations pop up naturally from seed. People with influence and money just do a little weeding here, sprinkle some fertiliser there, occasionally graft on a new stock to an existing shrub, a bit of pruning and hey presto! Nothing is 100% controlled but much that can be seen is carefully selected and cultivated. Anything radical or interesting is quickly weeded out. The rights groups are doubtlessly oblivious to their selection and grateful for their grants, benefits and donations.
Wikileaks is like a great big thistle growing in the middle of the lawn with all the little birds and mice enjoying the seeds. The gardeners are busily pruning its roots, spraying their poison on it and the contractor is arriving shortly with the brush-cutter. Soon the garden will be restored with a near monoculture of grass all growing in a neatly mown lawn. A few dandelions and daisies will push up from time to time and imagine they’re growing in the wilderness. Direct control would be far less effective and impossibly expensive. I wish it was so because it would be so easy to fight but sadly our situation is far more complex and difficult than that.
The thing is we shouldn’t even be discussing anything other than the Afghan files and Irak files….
All other things (whatever that might be) is just an act of prestidigitation….while we look at the Assange porn saga….Assange is extradited, tortured, sentenced and excecuted.
Jim
“Is the real purpose not…”etc.
Indeed. The UK have tried to pass the buck with regard to Shamima Begum. Now they’re trying to do the same over JA by engendering a national, if not international, atmosphere of such disgust about JA’s alleged sexual misdemeanours that the Swedes will feel pressurised into reopening their investigations – yet again, in spite of already deciding twice that they were dropping investigations. It would them be for the Swedes to fall subject to pressures from the US to have him extradited, taking the focus off the UK for being completely immoral and fully compliant to the US. A case of “Whatever happens to JA, it’s no longer our problem or moral responsibility”. Seems to be becoming a cowardly repetitive theme for the UK to adopt and I’m sure this isn’t escaping the notice of other countries.
If the Swedes have got any sense they’ll see straight through this and won’t fall for it.
Sorry, typo correction: half way down should read “It would then be…” (blame my glasses!)
J
Er, no, the neocon scumbags in the UK government that had him arrested are desperate to be credited with it.
Ms M Payne, Foreign Minister, Australia, says Julian will receive consular assistance. Shocking that UK, Australia, etc. have no gumption to stand up to US.
Well, the US does have a much bigger military… It takes a lot of gumption to stand up to that.
In any case, gumption ran out in British stores about 40 years ago.
Australia will do nothing, it’s controlled by the warmongering yanks
“Because – you know – ‘rude and ‘ungrateful’ people don’t deserve to have their human rights respected. There’s probably a clause in the UN charter to that effect”
And a robust justice system in Great Britain dictates that ‘Narcissists’ must languish in jails for a very long time, preferably in solitary confinement!
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/04/assange-vault-7.html#more
This is one view of what is going on with Assange.
Unless of course the idea is to off him in custody. Some inmate goes nuts and does him in. His most dangerous period to survive through would be the interregnum between May’s fall and Corbyn’s swearing in as PM.
Seth Rich.
Gary Webb.
Michael Hastings
“President Lenin Moreno”
This is one more occasion where the word ‘President’ is used to describe a “Thug”; a thug driven by self-interest and pernicious corrupt Western interference.
Sign the petition: https://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action4/common/public/?action_KEY=13659
There is no logical contradiction in the loan asked by Moreno’s administration to the IMF. Correa’s government has indebted the country with Chinese usury ‘help’ and substandard ‘development’ projects and has surrendered much of the oil wealth to Imperialist China to pay for them. Ecuador owes billions to China and is struggling to avoid the fate and collapse of Venezuela. Assange is a minor case, also created by the previous Correa administration in another moment of left wing mad ignorance, and has become a source of embarrassment and even danger, when Assange started to attack, indirectly, the all important migrant Ecuadorean community in Spain.
Chinese loans are “predatory lending” and “usury.”
IMF loans are positive investments.
Four legs good, two legs bad.
Four legs good, two legs bad.
“Where all the money will end up is anybody’s guess…..”
Try looking in Moreno’s secret bank accounts in Belize and Panama.
18 thumbs down – at this moment; more coming without doubt – no thumbs up. About right for this shite.
Ok everyone add comite espartaco to your shills list we had antonym for a while he’s now using another name (we will wait for the Israeli stories he’ll give himself away again)also add escapee he’s another shill who doesn’t understand subtlety in doing hasbara
The inappropriately named Lenin Moreno is far more likely to have indebted Ecuador by looting the country’s Treasury and parking his gains in investment funds run by his brother in two tax haven countries (Belize and Panama).
The IMF loan just pushes Ecuador further into debt peonage. This much is, or at least should be, common knowledge. Since when does a country which doesn’t even have its own currency borrow its way out of debt? It is a bit like the EU where the countries of the southern periphery sink further into the debt/austerity trap since they are using he eruo what for them is an over-valued currency, whereas the northern bloc are in effect are using it as an undervalued currency and clocking up trade surpluses. That’s what happens when economies which are at different levels of development and without the adjustment mechanism of devaluation.
Any countries with any sense should be trying to escape the dollar and its choke-hold on the national currency and economy. Of course the US authorities know this and are determined not to let this happen. Their principle allies are the enemy within: the comprador bourgeois classes in the ‘developing’ world who are willing to act as the sub-mafia capos to the US Godfather.
The sale of Assange by such a venal stratum, and for a miserable ponzi loan, speaks volumes the US-wannabees of the US colonial empire.
Whoops, I forgot to add the Ecuador’s sovereign bonds are, according to ratings agencies, Moody’s Fitch and S&P are below investment grade. This is a polite way of saying that they are Junk Bonds. No wonder that they want that IMF loan.
Where to start with Jones’s abysmal exercise in concern trolling.
He starts off well enough saying, “States that commit crimes in foreign lands depend on at least passive acquiescence. This is achieved in a number of ways. One is the “othering” of the victims: the stripping away of their humanity, because if you imagined them to be people like your own children or your neighbours, their suffering and deaths would be intolerable.” – true, easier to make violence more palatable when the target is a ‘gook’, ‘rag head’, or ‘communist’ but the article is all downhill from there.
Jones then says ‘Another approach is to portray opponents of foreign aggression as traitors, or in league with hostile powers.’ which in a nutshell sums up the Guardian’s shitty treatment of Assange.
He adds ‘And another strategy is to cover up the consequences of foreign wars, to ensure that the populace is kept intentionally unaware of the acts committed in their name.’ – those who have done their homework on Syria and Venezuela would claim this is exactly what the Guardian set out to do with their campaign of dissembling and disinformation over these conflicts.
But it is in the sphere of identity politics that Jones comes into his own.
Here he dutifully trots out the party line on how Assange must account for barely credible sex allegations (presumably to appease Guardian group-think on men) yet I cannot recall Jones or indeed any of the Guardian regulars calling for the same level of scrutiny for those in the military or political world who are guilty of far more serious crimes.
Correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t the Guardian offer a regular platform to Blair, Campbell or a variety of US democrat implicated in a shameful record of human rights abuses.
This lack of proportionality sums up why so called liberals like Jones can never be taken seriously.
Terrible crimes HAVE been committed but for Jones, et al, serving the gods of identity politics is far more important than obtaining justice for those who have been damaged by the people Assange and Wiki have exposed.
Put another way it will be a cold day in hell before meaningful change occurs if we put our faith in self serving platforms like the Guardian.
An excellent comment. And a fine article.
Harry Stotle: bang on the money again, and you can scream at people like Jones and his ilk about war crimes committed by the West, and they’ll want to discuss Assange’s rape charges (quite a few of these idpol addled idiots actually believe Assange was charged with rape)
WHATEVER THE DIFFERENCIES : …LEFT ..RIGHT … OLD ..YOUNG … WE MUST ALL STAND BEHIND MR JULIAN ASSANGE IN THIS STRUGGLE … BECAUSE IN THAT … WE NOT ONLY SUPPORT HIM ::: WE SUPPORT OURSELVES and ANY FREEDOMS STILL INTACT IN THESE OMINOUS TIMES …BECAUSE IF CRIMINAL POLITICIANS SUCCEED IN THEIR PLANS ..THERE WILL ONLY BE ONE LOGICAL ANSWER LEFT : VIOLENCE !