All posts tagged: Wikileaks

A Marriage of Conscience: Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning

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Edward Curtin “About suffering they were never wrong,” wrote W. H. Auden in the poem “Musée Des Beaux Arts.” These lines occurred to me last week when all eyes were focused on the brutal British seizure of Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. No one should have been surprised by this despicable spectacle carried out in the noonday light for all to see, for the British government has not served as America’s jailer for the past seven years for no reason. It doesn’t take x-ray eyes to see that the British and the Moreno government in Ecuador are twin poodles on the American leash. After a phony display of judicial fairness, the British, as required by their American bosses, will dispatch Assange to the United States so he can be further punished for the crime of doing journalism and exposing war crimes. Assange has suffered mightily for American sins. The Anglo-American torturers know how to squeeze their victims to make old men out of the young. Abu Ghraib was no aberration. The overt …

Julian Assange Is Now The Litmus Test

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Where you stand on Julian Assange is now a litmus test such as has not been seen since the Iraq War, which was itself a litmus test such as had not been seen since the Miners’ Strike. If you are not for us, then you are against us. If you are not one of us, then you are one of them.

Uncle Tom’s Empire

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CJ Hopkins I don’t normally do this kind of thing, but, given the arrest of Julian Assange last week, and the awkward and cowardly responses thereto, I felt it necessary to abandon my customary literary standards and spew out a spineless, hypocritical “hot take” professing my concern about the dangerous precedent the U.S. government may be setting by extraditing and prosecuting a publisher for exposing American war crimes and such, while at the same time making it abundantly clear how much I personally loathe Assange, and consider him an enemy of America, and freedom, and want the authorities to crush him like a cockroach. Now I want to be absolutely clear. I totally defend Assange and Wikileaks, and the principle of freedom of the press, and whatever. And I am all for exposing American war crimes (as long as it doesn’t endanger the lives of the Americans who committed those war crimes, or inconvenience them in any way). At the same time, while I totally support all that, I feel compelled to express my support …

In his own words: Assange’s statement

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Philip Roddis Do you know the Swedish Chief Prosecutor initially handling the allegations of rape against Julian Assange found no case to answer? Are you aware she was succeeded by Marianne Ny, who has pursued a legally dubious course? Have you read Assange’s detailed statement? Yesterday’s Guardian ran with Failure to extradite Assange to Sweden would endorse ‘rape culture’, say women’s groups. Four paragraphs in, it says: Sarah Green, co-director of End Violence Against Women, an alliance of more than 80 organisations, said Assange’s portrayal as a victim was an affront to rape survivors. “He’s always benefited from his cult hero status, painting himself as a victim and being very righteous. Yet this is about rape, it’s what he is accused of. It’s extremely serious.” This is about rape? Really? Here’s me thinking the pretext for his arrest a technicality on bail, with the unsealed extradition request from Virginia speaking of conspiring to crack a password; end of. Should Assange be extradited there’s no knowing, of course, what other charges may be added, including capital …

The Obvious Dirty Dealings Behind Julian Assange’s Arrest

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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.

WATCH: Collateral Murder

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With yesterdays arrest of Julian Assange, we thought it important to remember WHY he was in the Empire’s crosshairs. The video Collateral Murder is WikiLeaks’ most famous, most shocking release. Footage of US military personnel murdering civilians and journalists and laughing about it.

Discuss: Julian Assange Arrested

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This morning, officers of the Metropolitan police were invited into the Ecuadorian embassy by President Lenin Moreno. They proceeded to arrest WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and literally drag him out of the building.

On Chelsea Manning (and B. F. Skinner)

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Philip Roddis Do I say hero or heroine? Pass. I’ve a head full of thoughts on that subject but it’s not where I want to go here. Chelsea Manning is back behind bars. Not as punishment but as coercion. A grand jury held in secrecy wants him/her to testify against Julian Assange and s/he won’t.[1] A judge has held Chelsea Manning in contempt and she is being detained after refusing to testify about her disclosure of military and diplomatic secrets to WikiLeaks in 2010 … The former Army intelligence analyst, who served about seven years in prison for the massive leak, objected to the questioning in a grand jury appearance … [in] a continued effort by federal prosecutors investigating the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange. CNN today In solidarity with many activists facing the odds, I will stand by my principles. I will exhaust every legal remedy available,” [Manning] said. “My legal team continues to challenge the secrecy of these proceedings, and I am prepared to face the consequences of my refusal.”…Prosecutor Tracy McCormick said …

Michael Cohen’s Disproven Testimony

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Eric Zuesse Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen gave false testimony to Congress on Wednesday, February 27th, when he said that Trump had been phoned by Roger Stone in advance of the Wikileaks dump of Hillary Clinton’s emails and that Stone at that time told Trump that Stone had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange who had just told Stone that there would soon be a big dump by Wikileaks of damaging files from Clinton. On February 27th, Cohen told Congress: Mr. Trump knew from Roger Stone in advance about the WikiLeaks drop of emails. In July 2016, days before the Democratic convention, I was in Mr. Trump’s office when his secretary announced that Roger Stone was on the phone. Mr. Trump put Mr. Stone on the speakerphone. Mr. Stone told Mr. Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and that Mr. Assange told Mr. Stone that, within a couple of days, there would be a massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Mr. Trump responded …

Buzzfeed, Question Time & the purpose of Fake News

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in the last two months both Buzzfeed and The Guardian have issued “BREAKING NEWS” stories that were based on anonymous sources….both these stories were shown to be untrue in less than 24 hours.The important question is: Why does the media tell lies, if they know they will be revealed as such?

From Baghdad to Finland and All Across the World: What’s the US Up To?

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We are publishing here two articles on this subject from Helsinki Times, dated December 29, 2018 and January 1, 2019 respectively. Guarded warehouses near airport and mysterious cargo from Baghdad by Will Sillitoe Why does the US Embassy in Helsinki need a big warehouse near Malmi Airport and what are the contents of thousands of kilograms of cargo sent to Helsinki from Baghdad? A dilapidated warehouse in Malmi is being used by the US Embassy for unknown operations after a Wikileaks release revealed its location. The anonymous looking building on Takoraudantie is notable only for the new 427 meter perimeter fence that according to the Wikileaks’ database was ordered by the US Embassy in April 2018. Situated across the street from the main entrance of Malmi Airport, the warehouse with its 3 meter high security fence appears an unlikely location for official embassy business. Neighbouring companies include a car yard and a tyre warehouse. Helsinki Times visited the perimeters this weekend. Security personnel, young Finns in uniforms with American flags on their arms, appeared nervous and suspicious …

The Guardian’s Reputation In Tatters After Forger Revealed To Have Co-Authored Assange Smear

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Elizabeth Vos, Disobedient Media Regular followers of WikiLeaks-related news are at this point [December 3, 2018] familiar with the multiple serious infractions of journalistic ethics by Luke Harding and The Guardian, especially (though not exclusively) when it comes to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. However, another individual at the heart of this matter is far less familiar to the public. That man is Fernando Villavicencio, a prominent Ecuadorian political activist and journalist, director of the USAID-funded NGO Fundamedios and editor of online publication FocusEcuador. Most readers are also aware of The Guardian’s recent publication of claims that Julian Assange met with former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort on three occasions. This has now been definitively debunked by Fidel Narvaez, the former Consul at Ecuador’s London embassy between 2010 and 2018, who says Paul Manafort has never visited the embassy during the time he was in charge there. But this was hardly the first time the outlet published a dishonest smear authored by Luke Harding against Assange. The paper is also no stranger to publishing stories based on …

Manufacturing Truth

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CJ Hopkins If you’re one of the millions of human beings who, despite a preponderance of evidence to the contrary, still believe there is such a thing as “the truth,” you might not want to read this essay. Seriously, it can be extremely upsetting when you discover that there is no “truth” … or rather, that what we’re all conditioned to regard as “truth” from the time we are children is just the product of a technology of power, and not an empirical state of being. Humans, upon first encountering this fact, have been known to freak completely out and start jabbering about the “Word of God,” or “the immutable laws of quantum physics,” and run around burning other people at the stake or locking them up and injecting them with Thorazine. I don’t want to be responsible for anything like that, so consider this your trigger warning. OK, now that that’s out of the way, let’s take a look at how “truth” is manufactured. It’s actually not that complicated. See, the “truth” is … …

Julian Assange vs. the Cabal

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Renee Parsons It is widely rumored that, with sealed indictments pending in the US, Wikileaks founder and publisher Julian Assange may be imminently forced to leave the Ecuadorian Embassy which has provided him safe refuge since 2012. However, after a recent visit to Ecuador, US vice president Mike Pence (representing the Cabal) reached an agreement with the Moreno government acknowledging that forcibly expelling Assange was politically untenable. One can only imagine that if such an expulsion comes to pass, it would likely result in a riot in the streets of London or that drugging Assange and smuggling him out in the middle of the night, under cover of a dark moon would equally result in forceful public demonstrations as well as worldwide condemnation. The Ecuadorians informed Pence they would rather make life inside the Embassy difficult and unsustainable, thereby encouraging Assange to voluntarily vacate the premises. Lots of Luck with that! There is no way to know if an indictment will be personally served on Assange. For Assange to simply walk out the door and …

UPDATED: The “Secret Meetings” of Paul Manafort & Julian Assange

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Kit Knightly Luke Harding and Dan Collyns, writing in the Guardian, have claimed Paul Manafort (jailed former-campaign chief to Donald Trump) met with Julian Assange, the illegally detained founding editor of WikiLeaks, in the run-up to 2016 Presidential election. You can read an archived version their article here, just in case The Guardian “amends” their claims in the future (Update – The Guardian has already edited their article to scale back their language. Called it). Other “news” outlets have, rather predictably, jumped all over it. WikiLeaks have categorically denied any such meetings took place: Remember this day when the Guardian permitted a serial fabricator to totally destroy the paper's reputation. @WikiLeaks is willing to bet the Guardian a million dollars and its editor's head that Manafort never met Assange. https://t.co/R2Qn6rLQjn — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) November 27, 2018 What the article says So, is there any truth to the claims? Well, certainly not on the weight of Harding’s article. There is no evidence cited, except for the testimony of anonymous “sources”. Sources have said Manafort went to …

I Called the Ecuadorian Embassy and This Is What Happened

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Hope K I came to WikiLeaks late. I remember reading about them, Chelsea Manning, and Julian Assange, and I thought, good on them. But it was far away, and I was busy with local issues. I had been defending the West Memphis Three for eighteen years. You see, I am from Arkansas. But it just so happens sometimes that local meets national. Local meets national and global for me in the form of the Clintons. I have spent most of my life under the reign of them. When I found out Hillary Clinton was running for president again, I was outraged. I threw my energy into the Sanders campaign. We had a good shot, I thought. Maybe the people were ready to stand up and demand normalcy and compassion. Then I watched the entire Bernie movement get eaten by Hillary. The election fraud, voter fraud, voter suppression, media collusion, and social media troll farms were outrageous. I figured if she stole the primary, Hillary would steal the election, too. Then a miracle happened — Wikileaks drops like …

Your debt and mine to Julian Assange

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Philip Roddis In a recent post I referred to the vile treatment of a man who brought us irrefutible evidence, and in screeds, that the widely cherished notion of the West being democratic is a fat lie. True, some of us knew this already, but Wikileaks shocked even the most hardened critics of liberal democracy by the extent and unprecedentedly fine granularity of that evidence. In view of its shabby betrayal of Julian Assange – and the fact its readership demography maps closely onto that of my own site – I, pace Media Lens, singled out the Guardian for particularly scathing treatment. Two examples were columnists Deborah Orr and Suzanne Moore. It should surprise no one that both are women. Though Assange’s character assassination has involved many a male journalist – not least Russia Cold Warrior Luke Harding, whose uniquely personal betrayal of trust marked an all time journalistic low [1] – shills and hacks who also happened to be female had a spearhead role to play, given the precise form the assassination assumed. Here’s what computer …

Craig Murray: the Guardian tells “deliberate lies” about Assange and alleged Russia ties

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On Friday September 21 the Guardian published a piece titled “Revealed: Russia’s secret plan to help Assange escape from UK”. It was authored by Stephanie Kirchgaessner, Dan Collyns and our very own pulp plagiarist Luke Harding. Even without Murray’s subsequent revelations, there was a lot to be concerned about both in the headline and the article itself.

Helsinki Summit: Trump and Putin Respond to Mueller Indictments

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Eric Zuesse In the July 16th joint press conference between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the question arose of U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s recent indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officials for allegedly having engineered the theft of computer files from the Democratic National Committee and from John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman. Here is that part of the press conference, in a question that was addressed to both Presidents (and I boldface here the key end part of Putin’s presentation, and then I proceed to link to two articles which link to the evidence — the actual documents — that Putin is referring to in his response): REPORTER (Jeff Mason from Reuters): For President Putin if I could follow up as well. Why should Americans and why should President Trump believe your statement that Russia did not intervene in the 2016 election given the evidence that US Intelligence agencies have provided? Will you consider extraditing the 12 Russian officials that were indicted last week by a US Grand jury. TRUMP: …

Lift the ban on communications! Free Julian Assange!

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by James Coga, via WSWS June 6 will mark 10 weeks since the Ecuadorian government blocked all communication by WikiLeaks’ editor Julian Assange with the outside world, including personal visitors. Assange has been trapped inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012, when Quito granted him asylum in the face of a legal witch-hunt by the governments of the United States, Britain and Sweden. Britain was moving to extradite Assange to Sweden on trumped-up allegations of sexual abuse as the first step in transferring him to the US to face charges of espionage, which carry a possible death sentence. Washington had vowed to punish Assange for having exposed before the world war crimes committed by the US in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as US intrigues against other countries. In remarks last Wednesday, Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno attempted to defend the silencing of Assange. He sought to deny—unconvincingly—that this action was the outcome of his government’s capitulation to pressure and threats by the United States. Moreno put forward an Orwellian conception of freedom of speech …