Shooting the Whistleblowers
David Macilwain
It has just been announced that Facebook is banning some “dangerous people” from its platforms, particularly those promoting and allowing “hate speech” of various colours, but also including “conspiracy theorist” Alex Jones. This action follows on from measures taken after the Christchurch gunman used Facebook to screen his incendiary Islamophobic attack, and the sudden recognition of the threat posed by “White Supremacist” ideology.
At that time I wrote an article for the Australian blog “Pearls and Irritations”, which drew an uncomfortable comparison between “two Australians abroad” – the “Firearm terrorist” Brenton Tarrant, and the “Cyber terrorist” Julian Assange. It’s not of course that I think Assange is a terrorist of any description – but given the treatment he has been afforded by the Australian government he may as well be.
The reason I made this comparison, aside from the fact that the two men are both Australian citizens in prison for offences committed abroad, was because there is something else that connects their perceived crimes, and which sprang to mind following the Christchurch massacre – the live vision of men being gunned down in Baghdad by US soldiers, screened around the world thanks to Wikileaks.
It was not immediately after the massacre of unarmed Muslims in the Christchurch mosques that this similar show of White Man’s brutality some 12 years earlier came to mind, but rather following the draconian legislation rushed through the Australian Parliament shortly afterwards. The circumstances around this, described in more detail in my article, were frankly suspect – though it was dangerous to say so.
Many people expressed concern that the new laws and severe punishments for the broadcasting of violent and provocative content could punish or restrict the legitimate activities of whistleblowers deemed in the public interest – but the laws passed with reluctant submission from the Opposition Labor party:
Nonetheless, Mr Dreyfus (Labor’s former Attorney General) told the lower house the opposition would help pass the laws, as part of its commitment to bipartisanship on matters of national security.
He said Labor would refer the laws to the powerful intelligence and security parliamentary committee and amend them to deal with any issues, if it wins the election.
Mr Dreyfus said tech giants such as Facebook must do more to deal with violent content on their platforms. But hundreds of smaller companies would also be captured by the bill’s “onerous obligations”.
The laws might also hamper whistle-blowing activities, Mr Dreyfus said.
The following day, Wikileaks issued a warning that Julian Assange could be evicted from the Ecuadorian embassy “within hours or days”, a claim denied and dismissed by Ecuador, but proven true within a week.
But it wasn’t just the “Ecuadorian collusion” that was proven true; this was the final act in a seven year-long conspiracy to capture and imprison our most valued whistleblower, as well as a revelation that there was indeed such a conspiracy, and that Assange’s fear of rendition was wholly justified.
With the benefit of hindsight it now becomes clear just how the exposure of this conspiracy as well as its denouement was handled by the Western media machine. The primary method was evidently to use a diversionary tactic, which also served as a pretext for Assange’s arrest and “trial”. As if on cue, a group of 70 UK MPs wrote a letter to the UK Home Office Minister, demanding that he “allow the extradition of Julian Assange to Sweden”, which backed up the false story that Assange was arrested for skipping bail. Combined with the disgusting and politically motivated personal attack on Assange by the judge, the pervasive broadcasting of this fabricated smear story allowed the real story to be blotted out of existence.
Yet it was plain as day – the UK and Sweden had collaborated with the US in the vindictive punishment of Julian Assange for exposing the criminal operations of the Empire in the Middle East. Over seven years they had never given up their malign plan to “render” and silence him. They had also repeatedly lied about their true intentions and shown themselves quite untrustworthy, as well as capable of gross abuses of the human rights and justice they constantly espouse.
Confirming the operation as a conspiracy, involving mainstream Western media knowingly or unknowingly colluding in a criminal deception, was the way the story of Assange’s arrest was presented the following day in Australian media. I wrote a complaint to the quasi-State broadcaster SBS, whose story was constructed around the “rape charges” from Sweden, and the UK MPs’ demands. The report included a brief interview with Jeremy Corbyn, asked to comment not on the threat of extradition to the US but on whether he opposed Assange’s extradition to Sweden. Having cast Corbyn in this negative defensive light, the report then noted that he was opposed to Assange’s extradition to the US, and “along with Wikileaks supporters” was more concerned about the US war crimes Assange had helped to reveal.
At this point in the SBS TV news report, just eight seconds of the notorious Iraq war crime film “Collateral Murder” was included, and became the focus of my complaint, and claim that SBS had engaged in a “calculated deception”:
In this extract, a group of unarmed men, including the Reuters journalists, are seen walking in a street just before being gunned down from the US helicopter. We hear the machine gun fire open up, but see nothing happen as the video cuts to a view of the next target – the van that pulled up several minutes later, and which was also targeted.
We see none of the men hit by the fire, because two seconds elapses between the sound and the bullets hitting the target.
Why did SBS cut the video at that very point, so that the whole significance of the atrocity is concealed?
The same criticism may be made over the shooting of the men trying to rescue the only survivor, where the key footage is before the shooting. An examination of the whole sequence is obligatory, and noting that since it was posted on Youtube in 2010, it has registered over 16 million views.
What irony is it, that the very reason that Assange – Australia’s Assange – is regarded as a hero and whistleblower by most decent and thinking Australians is because he revealed what SBS now seeks to conceal – the serial war crimes of the US government in its illegal wars in the Middle East?
SBS was of course doing exactly the same as other Western mainstream broadcasters, whose cuts from Collateral Murder also failed to show the shocking sight of unarmed men being killed. It was equally noticeable that non-Western media – RT for instance – made a special point of showing the cut with the men falling down under fire, along with the callous commentary; that after all was the point of the story. RT even interviewed that other Australian abroad – John Pilger – from Sydney!
Surprisingly perhaps, SBS agreed to investigate my complaint – which I backed up by a close analysis of their clip that found it was subject to some subtle manipulation as well as the closely timed cut. I submitted it before further developments however, and the dawning realisation that the story about extradition to Sweden was completely false, and just a ruse to enable Assange’s arrest.
Once the disinformation about his alleged unsavoury personal habits was established in the minds of those on the left who should have supported him, the story of extradition to Sweden just faded away; he was now being held in prison so that he wouldn’t abscond while the US prepared its extradition case. If there were a few cries of protest over his illegal extradition to the US, they were mostly now for pointless reassurance on his fair treatment, when already the worst possible outcome of Assange’s seven year incarceration had eventuated; the system now had him in its grip.
Looking back now it is remarkable to see how the most egregious miscarriage of justice has been enabled by the media, acting on behalf of a criminally corrupted legal system operating in the service of those who hold power. None of these is acting in the public interest, or on behalf of the public. Rather they have colluded in a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice operating beyond any democratic process or control.
The serious implications for press freedom and International law of Assange’s “extrajudicial abduction” have been well examined by independent and non-Western media, just as they have been ignored or dismissed by Western leaders and media commentators. The ability to perform such a feat of “double-think” is hard to comprehend, yet is so pervasive amongst millions of normal people that we have to accept it as a feature of human psychology.
It is this that makes us so susceptible to manipulation by “psy-ops”, or “disinformation warfare”, of which SBS’ eight-second clip of Collateral Murder is the perfect example. I wait in anticipation of SBS’ reponse to my complaint, perhaps along these lines:
In the context of the report, which concerned Assange’s evasion of sexual misconduct charges in Sweden, as well as recent restrictions on the screening of violent and abusive content, SBS considers the brief reference to Wikileaks’ video on a separate issue was sufficient to inform the viewer.”
Of course they might just come clean and admit that they simply screened the extract of relevant footage provided to them by the Department of Information Control (Global) at CentCom, and that other versions provided by conspiracy theorist websites such as Wikileaks may have been manipulated.
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Like the realisation Father Christmas doesn’t exist the fact that honesty and truthfulness does not exist with our rulers is not so surprising really. They have spent aeons hiding the truth, they are expert at this. But once the crack appears and light gets in they are exposed for what they truly are, corrupt and totally corruptible. As is their media. Don’t fool yourself into believing they might change.
“Truth is truth to the end of reckoning” It just might not be what you think it is.
Tutisicecream: “but once the crack appears, and light gets in, they are exposed for what they truly are…..”. Hmmm, vampires hopefully? Sorry Tuts, couldn’t resist that. Yes, I know things are really grim. By the way, there’s a brilliant site called Neoliberalism Soft panorama. Huge site that has literally thousands of pages, dozens upon dozens of subsections. It fully disects the vile dogma of Neoliberalism, and what we’re up against. Subsections include ‘Audacious Oligarchy and Democracy For Winners’ ‘Neoliberal War On Reality’ ‘Casino Capitalism’ ‘Globalisation Of Corporatism’ ‘Neoliberal Brainwashing’. Check it out.
Shining a bright light on it, as Manning and Assange and others have done, and distributed through sites like this, is the only way can weaken these evil beings; after all, sunlight is a powerful disinfectant.
I posted a comment which has disappeared. Would this be an issue with the new website or is there now some kind of censorship policy?
No, we do not have any censorship policy. Your comment was caught by the anti-spam software and dropped in the spam folder, but it’s restored now.
My reply to Harry’s comment below disappeared too. Seems the spam or profanity settings are too keen to kick in.
On another point, it’s somewhat user unfriendly that replies to comments are collapsed by default, and it’s a pain to open each 0ne up. Otherwise the other changes are welcome, thanks
We don’t have that one at all, unfortunately.
[UPDATE] Correction, we do have it and it’s published.
Thanks.
Is there a way that you can set the default on your site backend to expand all replies so that the thread flows like it used to do? Or is it intentionally done this way by yourselves?
Thanks, Admin. I didn’t think it possible (but one can get a little paranoid) and should have posted that I realised it was published.
I wish that all of your disinfo comments would automatically disappear.
FS, I am clearly not a disinformation agent. I make a claim and I match it to the evidence – everything I say is completely transparent. All those who disagree with me in the comments rarely address the matching of claim to evidence (of course, it’s possible to disagree that the evidence supports my claim but commenters do not give their reasons for disagreement – they simply resort to cheap epithets).
No one has said how what I have pointed out as anomalies in the Juju Chang interview indicate that Chelsea is an intelligence asset. No one has gone anywhere near that interview or the obvious ridiculousness of Chelsea allegedly labelling the 400,000 documents she downloaded in one day as “Lady Ga Ga”.
My wish is that the level of argument in the comments section would rise above the kneejerk reaction and that commenters would recognise the obvious (when it is pointed out as it was to me) paradigm of how the power elite not only dupe us but push their dupery in our faces. It is not rocket science, it is just an unfamiliar and seemingly counterintuitive paradigm supported by evidence everywhere you turn. With such appalling kneejerk reaction and seemingly wilful blindness of this obvious paradigm among Off-Guardian readers I wonder what hope there is.
From the Guardian website:
‘’The Guardian is editorially independent, meaning we set our own agenda. Our journalism is free from commercial bias and not influenced by billionaire owners, politicians or shareholders. No one edits our editor. No one steers our opinion. This is important as it enables us to give a voice to those less heard, challenge the powerful and hold them to account. It’s what makes us different to so many others in the media, at a time when factual, honest reporting is critical.’’
How’s that for chutzpah!
One is lost for words! Pure newspeak, pure Orwell. Quack-quack-quack, pure Duckspeak.
Well in the words of Joesph Geobbles ‘’If you’re going to tell a lie make it a big one.’’
‘No one steers our opinion’ – of course they don’t, Guardian groupthink is entirely coincidental ……. not.
In fact their long running, and vicious campaign to smear a fellow journalist illustrates just how low the Guardian is willing to stoop in service of the Washington consensus.
Lying about Manafort, reproducing Moreno’s allegations about Assanges behaviour verbatim (just after Moreno had received billions in loans) tells us how deeply Guardian stenographers are attached to their preferred ideology (liberal interventionism) despite a shameful record of regime change built on propaganda rationalising the overthrow of elected governments.
All of these trends crystalised around the Guardian’s (mis)treatment of Assange – sneering while a journalist is tortured is a new low, even for this profoundly dysfunctional news outlet.
SBS and the ABC never, ever bite the claws/talons/sweaty hands that feed them Gezzah.
Pathetic sycophants.
I know that what I say will not be believed but I still think it’s worth saying regardless of the offence it may cause. I don’t mean to offend, only to speak what I believe to be the truth.
When an organisation such as Wikileaks appears on the scene there is no possibility that the power elite will not engage all techniques possible to infiltrate and otherwise set up a “controlled opposition” to undermine its objectives. The genuine operators of Wikileaks may well be aware of this phenomenon and consider they have implemented an effective strategy to counter it, however, I think the evidence shows failure in this endeavour, at least, to some degree.
I think the evidence clearly shows that Chelsea Manning is an intelligence asset displayed both in her Wikipedia entry and in the first interview she has post alleged jail-sentence with Juju Chang, anchor of ABC’s Nightline. (Compare Chelsea’s perky appearance after 7 years with Julian’s after the same period.)
Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelsea_Manning
The two items below, are exceedingly implausible. A high degree of implausibility is a typical sign from power elite that they are duping us.
“On January 5, 2010, Manning downloaded the 400,000 documents that became known as the Iraq War logs. On January 8, she downloaded 91,000 documents from the Afghanistan database, known later as part of the Afghan War logs. She saved the material on CD-RW and smuggled it through security by labeling the CD-RW media “Lady Gaga”. She then copied it onto her personal computer. The next day, she wrote a message in a readme.txt file, which she told the court was initially intended for The Washington Post.”
“Manning began basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, on October 2, 2007. She wrote that she soon realized she was neither physically nor mentally prepared for it.[71] Six weeks after enlisting, she was sent to the discharge unit. She was allegedly being bullied, and in the opinion of another soldier, was having a breakdown. The soldier told The Guardian: “The kid was barely five foot … He was a runt, so pick on him. He’s crazy, pick on him. He’s a faggot, pick on him. The guy took it from every side. He couldn’t please anyone.” Nicks writes that Manning, who was used to being bullied, fought back—if the drill sergeants screamed at her, she would scream at them—to the point where they started calling her “General Manning”.”
Part of the transcript of the 11 minute Juju Chang interview with analysis in square brackets https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSx1VG8UnF8
Unlike SBS, US ABC seems suspiciously candid in their airing of the video. Suspiciously candid. I think it’s worth recognising that power knows it can do what it likes – show the truth (or generally some distorted version of it) with the attitude – yeah? and what are you – yes you you little pleb – going to do about it?
Juju’s first words to Chelsea: So many people call you a traitor; many people call you a hero. Who is Chelsea Manning?
[Pretty much equal weight to traitor and hero. Odd on MSM, no?]
Chelsea: I’m just me. It’s as simple as that.
[So not a whistleblower, not disgusted with what she’s seen. She’s just her.]
Juju’s vo: Images like these. American soldiers opening fire from an Apache helicopter …
Subtitles: “Oh yeah, look at that … Right through the windshield.” “Ha! Ha!“
Juju’s vo: “… on what would turn out to be civilians including children …
Subtitles: “Well, It’s their fault for bringing their kids into a battle.” “That’s right.”
Juju’s vo: … among the dead, two journalists from Reuters.”
Chelsea: Everything you need to know about warfare is right there in a 1 minute 47 [sec] video.
Juju: What do you mean by that?
Chelsea: Counterinsurgency is not a simple thing. … It’s not as simple as good guys versus bad guys. It’s a mess.
[Not the condemnatory words you’d expect from someone who’s prepared to go to prison for them, are they?]
Juju’s vo: Manning says she read news articles about how Reuters had tried in vain to request this video for two years so she decided to bring it up the chain of command.
Juju: What did he or she say back?
Chelsea: “It’s just another incident. The only reason it sticks out and is prominent is because it was two journalists. There are thousands and thousands of videos like that.
[Thousands and thousands!?! It’s hard to determine if Chelsea is reporting what the higher up said or if it’s her own words. If, at that stage, the footage was only accessible internally why would the higher up be saying “the only reason it sticks out … is because it was two journalists”? If there are “thousand and thousands” of videos like that why, internally, would this footage seem particularly prominent? And why wasn’t Chelsea privy to these “thousands and thousands” of videos. Why has she only seen this snippet? Could we infer this is the power elite telling us, “Hey, we do this sort of heinous stuff whenever we like – suck it up. What are you – yes you – what are you going to do about it?” And isn’t Chelsea concerned that this is just one snippet of thousands? Shouldn’t she make some noise about all the others she didn’t leak to Wikileaks. Did she not try to track any others down? We’ve just got the one even though she managed to leak 700,000 documents?]
With the clear indications that Chelsea is an intelligence asset (likewise Adrian Lamo) we have every reason to suspect that the Collateral Murder video is faked. The power elite absolutely love to dupe us – they would much rather dupe us than do things for real, except where they really want to do things for real. Nothing would have given them greater delight than to push these intelligence assets at us along with the shocking (but faked) video. I’m not expert enough to claim that the video is faked, however, I think there is nothing to say that the audio is not bits of real audio stitched together and set against a fake video. For example, we hear of humvees and a Brad but I see no evidence of these – mention of them may be perfectly consistent, of course, in the scheme of things. My understanding of warfare is non-existent, however, I somehow feel the shooting is not organic and when the soldier says, “That’s a weapon”, I just don’t get the feeling it’s a soldier looking at the journalist’s camera.
See https://occamsrazorterrorevents.weebly.com/wikileaks-controlled-opposition.html for more.
I would really appreciate someone who does have have knowledge of warfare and/or video and audio editing to make a comment on whether or not there are signs of fakery in Collateral Murder.
In the middle of a trauma when part of somebody’s head is missing you don’t focus on a broken finger nail – that is what you are doing here, unless you are suggesting there was no war in Iraq or that large numbers of non-combatants were not either killed or maimed by deadly US weapons.
The US should not have been there, period – your quibbling is a distraction from the much bigger issues that led to and followed on from the ludicrously named ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’.
My point, Harry, is that if Chelsea Manning is controlled opposition (which she obviously is) and if Collateral Murder is faked (regardless of the fact that civilians may well be targeted as they are in that video) that may make a difference to Julian’s case. However, if it makes no difference to his case the truth of the matter, as you indicate, is not a priority at the moment (even if it should come out in time). What do you think? Do you think that revealing that Chelsea is an intelligence asset and the video is faked (assuming it is) will make a difference to Julian’s case?
Who would fake the video and why?
As I keep saying and is so abundantly obvious, the power elite love to dupe us. When the Wikileaks ship appeared on the horizon, the power elite would have had a big chuckle (though you’d think they might have some concern, at least, about genuine leakers) and sent their “controlled opposition” welcoming party consisting of Chelsea, Adrian and others … and the shocking video. The fact that it needed to be unencrypted reminds me of New York City’s “refusal” to release the first responder “oral histories” resulting in New York Times suing for release – as if. It was just a complete charade to keep everyone focused on the one truth of controlled demolition and distracted from the other equally important truth, staged death and injury. https://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/12/nyregion/city-to-release-thousands-oforal-histories-of-911-today.html
So the video was released and what have been the repercussions? A big fat zero as far as I know … except for Julian. The power elite can do what they like – they know a significant percentage of the population hates them so they just play up to the hatred with a big Fuck You. Creating that video was for their amusement, to say, “Think you can crush us? Yeah, right. We’ve been in this game a lot longer than you have and we have everything under control. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. ROFL!” It’s like 9/11 – so many people recognise that the power elite are responsible (even if most don’t recognise staged death and injury) and what’s happened to anyone? Precisely NOTHING.
If you refuse to recognise the anomalies in Chelsea Manning’s Wikipedia article and the utterly glaring anomalies in the Juju Chang interview I really don’t know what to say. Please – you must match the evidence with the claim. I haven’t pulled this out of thin air. It was a simple progression: very expensive-looking photo raised suspicions; Wikipedia article anomalies; Juju Chang interview anomalies; video anomalies. What do they all add up to?
And it’s only to be expected that they would implement controlled opposition. I really do not understand why people treat what I say as if it’s coming from out of left field and completely crazy. It is perfectly consistent with the way the world works. It’s 9 years since the video was released and in all that time it didn’t cross my mind (or seemingly others’) that Chelsea was an intelligence asset or that the video was faked but when my suspicion was aroused and I followed the trail then, of course, it all made perfect sense and I felt bad I hadn’t thought of it sooner when it may have been more useful.
You’re wise to be cautious. We should all be wary of false flags, controlled opposition, agent provocateurs, and astro turfing. To give just a few well documented examples, the close aide and right hand man of Willi Brandt, German Chancellor in the 60s/70s, turned out to be a Soviet agent. As was Martin Bormann, Adolf Hitler’s right hand man, during the war. A whole horde of similar people, like Hopkins and White, Burgess, Philby and Maclean, infiltrated the wartime and post war US and UK administration. I doubt that any of this has changed over the years. There is so much controlled opposition, like Counterpunch and Democracy Now, and so many bogus NGOs, charities and front groups, like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and all the rest.
But you can take scepticism too far. It doesn’t seem credible to me that people like Manning, Snowden and Assange are controlled opposition. They have done too much damage to the AngloZionist Empire and suffered so much personally that I think this can be safely discounted.
Mark, I present my case on a webpage. If you happen to read it I’d be interested to know where you find my reasoning lacking. https://occamsrazorterrorevents.weebly.com/wikileaks-controlled-opposition.html
Yes, I’ve read that. I had doubts about Wikileaks when it first came out, but I base what I say on my 2nd short paragraph above. Could be wrong, but it seems unlikely to me.
Your comment seems to imply I think Wikileaks is controlled opposition. No, no, no, no, no. I think they’ve been infiltrated by at least Chelsea Manning, Adrian Lamo and Ben Griffin and I believe the Collateral Murder video is fake, however, I don’t have enough faith in my analytical ability to come out and say it is for sure … but none of those I approach who are better placed to give an opinion will give one. No one will touch an analysis of that video with a 50-foot barge pole … which makes me only more suspicious. If they thought it was real why not just say so.
So if anyone out there feels that they can give an opinion on the authenticity of the video please do so.
More total garbage delivered with bias based on emotive supposition and 100% evidence free. Could there be a worse example of an astroturfer who climbs onboard on some issues yet continues to slander innocents on one? A known technique of the oppressor. There is no evidence that the collateral murder video is faked unless someone is foolish enough to lap up nonsense from a proven slanderer.
All else is anodyne & derivative agreement on other issues, likely as an armour to claim some sort of like-mindedness. There is much more evidence of flax girl’s mendacity than Manning’s or Assange’s.
Oh dear, UreKismet, it saddens me that you do not have my measure at all.
I wouldn’t hold your breath David. Thanks again for your input on this disgrace. I avoid ABC and SBS like the plague, however the day Julian Assange was arrested, allowed myself to stomach 7-8 mins coverage on ABC here in Aussie. The revolting Philip Williams could barely contain his glee reporting that Assange would now face justice. For those not in Australia, Williams is a cross between Luke Harding and Christiane Amanpour. But it dosn’t really matter who in the mainstream media reports on this – they are merely presstitutes and stenographers for Empire and Imperialism. They all sold their integrity and morals a long time ago. Why do we continue referring to these people as ‘journalists’ anyway? Their actions do not challenge power or the sta quo. Also, as I practically boycott MSM in Australia, has any politician even mentioned Assange in the last couple weeks? Or are they playing their assigned parts as apparatchiks of the Anglo Zionist Empire? Truly shameful.
As @Ken Kenn refers to below, two journalists were released in Myanmar last week. And we in the UK recently had the Gavin Williamson ‘leak’ saga. MSM discussion programmes and social media have been dominated for a week or so by so-called ‘journalists’ pontificating self-righteously about both cases supporting the right to freedom of speech where it’s relating to matters of public interest.
In all the discussions that I saw, not one person alluded to Julian Assange. In fact, worse than that, some of these same pontificating journalists had been at the forefront of the JA smear campaign. They really do take us for idiots and unfortunately a large proportion of the population give them reason.
JudyJ….. That shows exactly what they are, and who they really represent. They are there to disseminate establishment propaganda. Such (real) journalists like John Pilger, Seymour Hersh, Eva Bartlett, also probably Robert Fisk and others are ostracised, shunned and smeared because they refused to sell their souls and ethics, and refuse to be courtiers for the elites. As I said, I won’t look at MSM now. Poison for our minds. And its sad that so many still lap up the crap put out by Harding, Cadwalladr, Williams, Amanpour and their ilk. Many other high quality, honest alternatives out there Judy, like, um, right here!
“SBS was of course doing the same as other mainstream broadcasters, whose cuts from Collateral Murder also failed to show the shocking sight of unarmed men being killed…”
As I have mentioned previously, when the UK’s BBC showed the same edited clips as SBS did following Julian Assange’s arrest they went even further in their manipulation of the truth – the reporter summarising the background to the case described the leaked video as ‘purporting to show a US helicopter firing at Iraqi civilians.’ No mention that anyone was injured never mind killed.
“In the context of the report, which concerned Assange’s evasion of sexual misconduct charges in Sweden, as well as recent restrictions on the screening of violent and abusive content, SBS considers the brief reference to Wikileaks’ video on a separate issue was sufficient to inform the viewer.”
I hate to have to continue to labour this point, but I think it is important. There are no sexual misconduct charges against Julian and there have never been any such charges!
Julian was wanted for questioning over an allegation. That is all. He was questioned in 2017. No charges were forthcoming after that questioning.
Thanks John – and of course I know that, but if SBS knows it it’s not saying! In that first report they said “on rape charges” I think. And they had the backing of the 70 MPs in the UK, led by Stewart Kinnock, whose wife is director of Save the Children. A stitch up.
1984 is here. It is now. Old George was just out by 55 years.
Then, as now, we have bogus perennial wars that are not intended to be “won”, but just to go on forever.
Generating vast profits for a tiny gilded elite.
Propaganda Goldstein type constructs like Bin Laden and ISIS, and false flag “terrorism”, providing the pretexts for blanket surveillance, stringent censorship and repression, and unlimited power and privilege for the Neocon elite.
Endemic, perpetual lying, and the perversion of language itself.
Russia, or Moslems, or whoever else is convenient, as subjects of the Two Minute Hate.
No single element is absent.
The non-fiction 1984 we inhabit is much shinier though.
There’s something about shiny things we humans seem almost incapable of resisting, as if there were a touch of magpie mixed in with our DNA. How easy we are to bewitch.
Contrast and compare the two journalists jailed in Myanmar to Assange.
All three exposed info and the liberal MSM choose to flag up only tow instances of wrongful detention.
The truth is it’s easier to denounce a weak nation for oppression of thought but a strong nation needs to be placated.
The US says to the UK ‘ Jump’ and the UK asks – ‘ How High Sir?’
“The ability to perform such a feat of “double-think” is hard to comprehend, yet is so pervasive amongst millions of normal people that we have to accept it as a feature of human psychology.”
There’s certainly human psychology at work here. But that’s not primarily what’s at work here. Primarily what’s at work is evil, which isn’t something we are born with. Evil is a choice – with consequences, including in the area of human psychology. We are born with imperfection and that’s challenging.
‘As if on cue, a group of 70 UK MPs wrote a letter to the UK Home Office Minister, demanding that he “allow the extradition of Julian Assange to Sweden”, which backed up the false story that Assange was arrested for skipping bail. Combined with the disgusting and politically motivated personal attack on Assange by the judge, the pervasive broadcasting of this fabricated smear story allowed the real story to be blotted out of existence.’ – indeed, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that our MPs (or a significant proportion of them) always put the interests of mass murderers, like Blair, Bush, Hillary and Obama ahead of those who expose what these gangsters have actually done.
And when not seeking to torture whistleblowers which is certainly what they are doing to Assange and Manning, MPs are busily orchestrating regime change (under the pretext of humanitarian aid) in order to rob weaker countries of oil, gas, or trade routes.
MPs and the MSM worry about Alex Jones (or pretend to) while children are dying of cholera or starvation in Yemen, while Israeli bombs are again being dropped on Gaza and while Libya descends into a state of near anarchy because neoliberals rode in to ‘save’ Bengahzi from Gadaffi.
Yes, there’s nothing more our MPs love than being outraged (especially grade-A phonie like Tom Watson or Jess Phillips) but not to the extent either they or the MSM are prepared to examine a mindset that is responsible for events infinitely more damaging than a near to the knuckle pod-cast, or some nutter letting off steam on the internet.
Your whole comment perfectly sums up the current state of affairs, but your quote above sets an appalling new low for our Establishment.
On top of that to then sentence someone skipping bail for a whole year AND in maximum security Belmarsh prison is utterly frightening and exposes completely the evil, sick bastards for what they are. God help Julian Assange…and Bradley Manning.
… Of course they might just come clean … In the first few weeks after the start of WW2 Hermann Göring was asked about the prospect of Berlin being bombed by the RAF and he responded with ‘If they do that you can call me Meyer’. One loses a little in the translation from German, but it roughly translates to ‘if you believe that, then I’m a Dutchman’.
Thank you for a well-written and thought-provoking piece.