The siege of Knightsbridge is both an emblem of gross injustice and a gruelling farce. For three years, a police cordon around the Ecuadorean embassy in London has served no purpose other than to flaunt the power of the state. It has cost £12 million. The quarry is an Australian charged with no crime, a refugee whose only security is the room given him by a brave South American country.
His “crime” is to have initiated a wave of truth-telling in an era of lies, cynicism and war.
The persecution of Julian Assange is about to flare again as it enters a dangerous stage. From August 20, three quarters of the Swedish prosecutor's case against Assange regarding sexual misconduct in 2010 will disappear as the statute of limitations expires.
At the same time Washington’s obsession with Assange and WikiLeaks has intensified. Indeed, it is vindictive American power that offers the greatest threat – as Chelsea Manning and those still held in Guantanamo can attest.
The Americans are pursuing Assange because WikiLeaks exposed their epic crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq: the wholesale killing of tens of thousands of civilians, which they covered up, and their contempt for sovereignty and international law, as demonstrated vividly in their leaked diplomatic cables.
WikiLeaks continues to expose criminal activity by the US, having just published top secret US intercepts – US spies' reports detailing private phone calls of the presidents of France and Germany, and other senior officials, relating to internal European political and economic affairs.
None of this is illegal under the US Constitution. As a presidential candidate in 2008, Barack Obama, a professor of constitutional law, lauded whistleblowers as “part of a healthy democracy [and they] must be protected from reprisal”.
In 2012, the campaign to re-elect President Barack Obama boasted on its website that he had prosecuted more whistleblowers in his first term than all other US presidents combined.
Before Chelsea Manning had even received a trial, Obama had pronounced the whisletblower guilty. He was subsequently sentenced to 35 years in prison, having been tortured during his long pre-trial detention.
Few doubt that should the US get their hands on Assange, a similar fate awaits him. Threats of the capture and assassination of Assange became the currency of the political extremes in the US following Vice-President Joe Biden's preposterous slur that the WikiLeaks founder was a “cyber-terrorist”.
Those doubting the degree of ruthlessness Assange can expect should remember the forcing down of the Bolivian president's plane in 2013 - wrongly believed to be carrying Edward Snowden.
According to documents released by Snowden, Assange is on a "manhunt target list". Washington's bid to get him, say Australian diplomatic cables, is "unprecedented in scale and nature".
In Alexandria, Virginia, a secret grand jury has spent five years attempting to contrive a crime for which Assange can be prosecuted. This is not easy. The First Amendment to the US Constitution protects publishers, journalists and whistleblowers.
Faced with this constitutional hurdle, the US Justice Department has contrived charges of “espionage”, “conspiracy to commit espionage”, “conversion” (theft of government property), “computer fraud and abuse” (computer hacking) and general “conspiracy”.
The Espionage Act has life in prison and death penalty provisions.
Assange's ability to defend himself in this Kafkaesque world has been handicapped by the US declaring his case a state secret. In March, a federal court in Washington blocked the release of all information about the “national security” investigation against WikiLeaks, because it was “active and ongoing” and would harm the “pending prosecution” of Assange.
The judge, Barbara J. Rosthstein, said it was necessary to show “appropriate deference to the executive in matters of national security”. This is the “justice” of a kangaroo court.
The supporting act in this grim farce is Sweden, played by the Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny. Until recently, Ny refused to comply with a routine European procedure that required her to travel to London to question Assange and so advance the case.
For four and a half years, Ny has never properly explained why she has refused to come to London, just as the Swedish authorities have never explained why they refuse to give Assange a guarantee that they will not extradite him on to the US under a secret arrangement agreed between Stockholm and Washington.
In December 2010, The Independent revealed that the two governments had discussed his onward extradition to the US.
Contrary to its 1960s reputation as a liberal bastion, Sweden has drawn so close to Washington that it has allowed secret CIA "renditions" - including the illegal deportation of refugees.
The rendition and subsequent torture of two Egyptian political refugees in 2001 was condemned by the UN Committee against Torture, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch; the complicity and duplicity of the Swedish state are documented in successful civil litigation and in WikiLeaks cables.
In the summer of 2010, Assange had flown to Sweden to talk about WikiLeaks revelations of the war in Afghanistan - in which Sweden had forces under US command.
“Documents released by WikiLeaks since Assange moved to England,” wrote Al Burke, editor of the online Nordic News Network, an authority on the multiple twists and dangers facing Assange, “clearly indicate that Sweden has consistently submitted to pressure from the United States in matters relating to civil rights. There is every reason for concern that if Assange were to be taken into custody by Swedish authorities, he could be turned over to the United States without due consideration of his legal rights.”
Why hasn’t the Swedish prosecutor resolved the Assange case? Many in the legal community in Sweden believe her behaviour inexplicable. Once implacably hostile to Assange, the Swedish press has published headlines such as: “Go to London, for God's sake.”
Why hasn't she? More to the point, why won't she allow the Swedish court access to hundreds of SMS messages that the police extracted from the phone of one of the two women involved in the misconduct allegations? Why won't she hand them over to Assange's Swedish lawyers?
She says she is not legally required to do so until a formal charge is laid and she has questioned him. Then, why doesn't she question him? And if she did question him, the conditions she would demand of him and his lawyers – that they could not challenge her – would make injustice a near certainty.
On a point of law, the Swedish Supreme Court has decided Ny can continue to obstruct on the vital issue of the SMS messages. This now goes to the European Court of Human Rights.
What Ny fears is that the SMS messages destroy her case against Assange. One of the messages makes clear that she did not want any charges brought against Assange, “but the police were keen on getting a hold on him”. She was “shocked” when they arrested him because she only “wanted him to take [an HIV] test”. She “did not want to accuse JA of anything” and “it was the police who made up the charges”. (In a witness statement, she is quoted as saying that she had been “railroaded by police and others around her”.)
Neither woman claimed she had been raped. Indeed, both have denied they were raped and one of them has since tweeted, “I have not been raped.” That they were manipulated by police and their wishes ignored is evident - whatever their lawyers might say now. Certainly, they are victims of a saga which blights the reputation of Sweden itself.
For Assange, his only trial has been trial by media. On August 20, 2010, the Swedish police opened a "rape investigation" and immediately - and unlawfully - told the Stockholm tabloids that there was a warrant for Assange's arrest for the “rape of two women”. This was the news that went around the world.
In Washington, a smiling US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates told reporters that the arrest “sounds like good news to me”. Twitter accounts associated with the Pentagon described Assange as a “rapist” and a “fugitive”.
Less than 24 hours later, the Stockholm Chief Prosecutor, Eva Finne, took over the investigation. She wasted no time in cancelling the arrest warrant, saying, “I don't believe there is any reason to suspect that he has committed rape.” Four days later, she dismissed the rape investigation altogether, saying, “There is no suspicion of any crime whatsoever.” The file was closed.
Enter Claes Borgstrom, a high profile politician in the Social Democratic Party then standing as a candidate in Sweden's imminent general election. Within days of the chief prosecutor's dismissal of the case, Borgstrom, a lawyer, announced to the media that he was representing the two women and had sought a different prosecutor in the city of Gothenberg. This was Marianne Ny, whom Borgstrom knew well, personally and politically.
On 30 August, Assange attended a police station in Stockholm voluntarily and answered all the questions put to him. He understood that was the end of the matter. Two days later, Ny announced she was re-opening the case.
Borgstrom was asked by a Swedish reporter why the case was proceeding when it had already been dismissed, citing one of the women as saying she had not been raped. He replied, “Ah, but she is not a lawyer.” Assange's Australian barrister, James Catlin, responded, “This is a laughing stock... it's as if they make it up as they go along.”
On the day Marianne Ny reactivated the case, the head of Sweden's military intelligence service – which has the acronym MUST - publicly denounced WikiLeaks in an article entitled “WikiLeaks [is] a threat to our soldiers.” Assange was warned that the Swedish intelligence service, SAPO, had been told by its US counterparts that US-Sweden intelligence-sharing arrangements would be “cut off” if Sweden sheltered him.
For five weeks, Assange waited in Sweden for the new investigation to take its course. The Guardian was then on the brink of publishing the Iraq “War Logs”, based on WikiLeaks' disclosures, which Assange was to oversee. His lawyer in Stockholm asked Ny if she had any objection to his leaving the country. She said he was free to leave.
Inexplicably, as soon as he left Sweden - at the height of media and public interest in the WikiLeaks disclosures - Ny issued a European Arrest Warrant and an Interpol “red alert” normally used for terrorists and dangerous criminals. Put out in five languages around the world, it ensured a media frenzy.
Assange attended a police station in London, was arrested and spent 10 days in Wandsworth Prison, in solitary confinement. Released on £340,000 bail, he was electronically tagged, required to report to police daily and placed under virtual house arrest while his case began its long journey to the Supreme Court.
He still had not been charged with any offence. His lawyers repeated his offer to be questioned by Ny in London, pointing out that she had given him permission to leave Sweden. They suggested a special facility at Scotland Yard commonly used for that purpose. She refused.
Katrin Axelsson and Lisa Longstaff of Women Against Rape wrote: “The allegations against [Assange] are a smokescreen behind which a number of governments are trying to clamp down on WikiLeaks for having audaciously revealed to the public their secret planning of wars and occupations with their attendant rape, murder and destruction... The authorities care so little about violence against women that they manipulate rape allegations at will. [Assange] has made it clear he is available for questioning by the Swedish authorities, in Britain or via Skype. Why are they refusing this essential step in their investigation? What are they afraid of?”
This question remained unanswered as Ny deployed the European Arrest Warrant, a draconian product of the “war on terror” supposedly designed to catch terrorists and organised criminals.
The EAW had abolished the obligation on a petitioning state to provide any evidence of a crime. More than a thousand EAWs are issued each month; only a few have anything to do with potential "terror" charges. Most are issued for trivial offences, such as overdue bank charges and fines. Many of those extradited face months in prison without charge. There have been a number of shocking miscarriages of justice, of which British judges have been highly critical.
The Assange case finally reached the UK Supreme Court in May 2012. In a judgement that upheld the EAW - whose rigid demands had left the courts almost no room for manoeuvre - the judges found that European prosecutors could issue extradition warrants in the UK without any judicial oversight, even though Parliament intended otherwise. They made clear that Parliament had been "misled" by the Blair government. The court was split, 5-2, and consequently found against Assange.
However, the Chief Justice, Lord Phillips, made one mistake. He applied the Vienna Convention on treaty interpretation, allowing for state practice to override the letter of the law. As Assange's barrister, Dinah Rose QC, pointed out, this did not apply to the EAW.
The Supreme Court only recognised this crucial error when it dealt with another appeal against the EAW in November 2013. The Assange decision had been wrong, but it was too late to go back. With extradition imminent, the Swedish prosecutor told Assange's lawyers that Assange, once in Sweden, would be immediately placed in one of Sweden's infamous remand prisons.
Assange's choice was stark: extradition to a country that had refused to say whether or not it would send him on to the US, or to seek what seemed his last opportunity for refuge and safety. Supported by most of Latin America, the courageous government of Ecuador granted him refugee status on the basis of documented evidence and legal advice that he faced the prospect of cruel and unusual punishment in the US; that this threat violated his basic human rights; and that his own government in Australia had abandoned him and colluded with Washington.
The Labor government of prime minister Julia Gillard had even threatened to take away his passport.
Gareth Peirce, the renowned human rights lawyer who represents Assange in London, wrote to the then Australian foreign minister, Kevin Rudd: “Given the extent of the public discussion, frequently on the basis of entirely false assumptions... it is very hard to attempt to preserve for him any presumption of innocence. Mr Assange has now hanging over him not one but two Damocles swords, of potential extradition to two different jurisdictions in turn for two different alleged crimes, neither of which are crimes in his own country, and that his personal safety has become at risk in circumstances that are highly politically charged.”
It was not until she contacted the Australian High Commission in London that Peirce received a response, which answered none of the pressing points she raised. In a meeting I attended with her, the Australian Consul-General, Ken Pascoe, made the astonishing claim that he knew "only what I read in the newspapers" about the details of the case.
Meanwhile, the prospect of a grotesque miscarriage of justice was drowned in a vituperative campaign against the WikiLeaks founder. Deeply personal, petty, vicious and inhuman attacks were aimed at a man not charged with any crime yet subjected to treatment not even meted out to a defendant facing extradition on a charge of murdering his wife. That the US threat to Assange was a threat to all journalists, to freedom of speech, was lost in the sordid and the ambitious.
Books were published, movie deals struck and media careers launched or kick-started on the back of WikiLeaks and an assumption that attacking Assange was fair game and he was too poor to sue. People have made money, often big money, while WikiLeaks has struggled to survive. The editor of the Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, called the WikiLeaks disclosures, which his newspaper published, "one of the greatest journalistic scoops of the last 30 years". It became part of his marketing plan to raise the newspaper's cover price.
With not a penny going to Assange or to WikiLeaks, a hyped Guardian book led to a lucrative Hollywood movie. The book's authors, Luke Harding and David Leigh, gratuitously described Assange as a "damaged personality" and "callous". They also revealed the secret password he had given the paper in confidence, which was designed to protect a digital file containing the US embassy cables.
With Assange now trapped in the Ecuadorean embassy, Harding, standing among the police outside, gloated on his blog that "Scotland Yard may get the last laugh".
The injustice meted out to Assange is one of the reasons Parliament reformed the Extradition Act to prevent the misuse of the EAW. The draconian catch-all used against him could not happen now; charges would have to be brought and “questioning” would be insufficient grounds for extradition.
"His case has been won lock, stock and barrel," Gareth Peirce told me, "these changes in the law mean that the UK now recognises as correct everything that was argued in his case. Yet he does not benefit."
In other words, the change in the UK law in 2014 means that Assange would have won his case and he would not have been forced to take refuge.
Ecuador's decision to protect Assange in 2012 bloomed into a major international affair. Even though the granting of asylum is a humanitarian act, and the power to do so is enjoyed by all states under international law, both Sweden and the United Kingdom refused to recognize the legitimacy of Ecuador's decision.
Ignoring international law, the Cameron government refused to grant Assange safe passage to Ecuador. Instead, Ecuador’s embassy was placed under siege and its government abused with a series of ultimatums.
When William Hague's Foreign Office threatened to violate the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, warning that it would remove the diplomatic inviolability of the embassy and send the police in to get Assange, outrage across the world forced the government to back down.
During one night, police appeared at the windows of the embassy in an obvious attempt to intimidate.
Since then, Julian Assange has been confined to a small room under Ecuador's protection, without sunlight or space to exercise, surrounded by police under orders to arrest him on sight.
For three years, Ecuador has made clear to the Swedish prosecutor that Assange is available to be questioned in the London embassy, and for three years she has remained intransigent.
In the same period Sweden has questioned 44 people in the UK in connection with police investigations. Her role, and that of the Swedish state, is demonstrably political; and for Ny, facing retirement in two years, she must “win”.
In despair, Assange has challenged the arrest warrant in the Swedish courts. His lawyers have cited rulings by the European Court of Human Rights that he has been under arbitrary, indefinite detention and that he had been a virtual prisoner for longer than any actual prison sentence he might face.
The Court of Appeal judge agreed with Assange's lawyers: the prosecutor had indeed breached her duty by keeping the case suspended for years. Another judge issued a rebuke to the prosecutor. And yet she defied the court.
Last December, Assange took his case to the Swedish Supreme Court, which ordered Marianne Ny's boss – the Prosecutor General of Sweden Anders Perklev – to explain. The next day, Ny announced, without explanation, that she had changed her mind and would now question Assange in London.
In his submission to the Supreme Court, the Prosecutor General made some important concessions: he argued that the coercion of Assange had been “intrusive” and that that the period in the embassy has been a “great strain” on him. He even conceded that if the matter had ever come to prosecution, trial, conviction and serving a sentence in Sweden, Julian Assange would have left Sweden long ago.
In a split decision, one Supreme Court judge argued that the arrest warrant should have been revoked. The majority of the judges ruled that, since the prosecutor had now said she would go to London, Assange's arguments had become “moot”. But the Court ruled that it would have found against the prosecutor if she had not suddenly changed her mind. Justice by caprice.
Writing in the Swedish press, a former Swedish prosecutor, Rolf Hillegren, accused Ny of losing all impartiality. He described her personal investment in the case as “abnormal” and that she should be replaced.
Having said she would go to London in June, Ny didn’t go, but sent a deputy, knowing that the questioning would not be legal under these circumstances, especially as she had not bothered to get Ecuador’s approval for the meeting.
At the same time, her office tipped off the Swedish tabloid newspaper Expressen, which sent its London correspondent to wait outside Ecuador's embassy for “news”. The news was that Ny was cancelling the appointment and blaming Ecuador for the confusion and by implication Assange.
As the statute of limitations date approaches – August 20 – another chapter in this hideous story will doubtless unfold, with Marianne Ny pulling yet another rabbit out of her hat and the commissars and prosecutors in Washington the beneficiaries.
Perhaps none of this is surprising. In 2008, a war on WikiLeaks and on Julian Assange was foretold in a secret Pentagon document prepared by the "Cyber Counterintelligence Assessments Branch".
It described a detailed plan to destroy the feeling of "trust" which is WikiLeaks' "centre of gravity". This would be achieved with threats of "exposure [and] criminal prosecution".
Silencing and criminalising such a rare source of truth-telling was the aim, smear the method. While this farce and judicial scandal continues, the reputation of Sweden is diminished and the shadow of America’s menace touches us all.
For important additional information, click on the following links:
http://justice4assange.com/extraditing-assange.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/assange-could-face-espionage-trial-in-us-2154107.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ImXe_EQhUI
https://justice4assange.com/Timeline.html
https://justice4assange.com/Timeline.html
http://pdfserver.amlaw.com/nlj/wikileaks_doj_05192014.pdf
https://wikileaks.org/59-International-Organizations.html
https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1202703/doj-letter-re-wikileaks-6-19-14.pdf
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jul/23/julian-assange-ecuador-and-sweden-in-tense-standoff-over-interview?CMP=twt_gu
http://assangeinsweden.com/2015/03/17/the-prosecutor-in-the-assange-case-should-be-replaced/
https://justice4assange.com/Prosecutor-cancels-Assange-meeting.html
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downboy
Posted Friday, July 31, 2015 - 13:17
America - an idea that has degenerated into a vindictive, confused and collapsing afterthought.
That successive Australian governments have lacked the spine to tell Washington to 'efoff' and leave our citizen alone shows the level of contempt the US has for it's client states and the gutlessness of the fools we elect to govern.
Thanks to John Pilger for his tireless work in supporting a fellow Australian citizen and for his reporting that leaves him so exposed to the the cruel whims of Washington and the US secret police.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. MattQ
Posted Friday, July 31, 2015 - 14:07
Thanks John. Information is power, and the powerful know this.
Downboy Amercians don't benefit. This is direct action against the global masses and the quality of information we are allowed. Neither do the Swedes, or the Ecuadorians, or the British who saw the buying power of 25 million pounds destroyed.
The sum advantage for British, Swedish and Australian governments is they get to keep a dribble of foreign intelligence. The kind of intelligence the foreign power wants them to have. The kind of intelligence used to fake them into a war. What a coup.
The war on whistelblowers is a war on global humanity by the 0.1%. The purpose is to stop change based on overwhelming benefit at the expense of the richest. Who'd have thought.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. Bilal
Posted Friday, July 31, 2015 - 16:20
On ABC 774 this morning, John Roskam of the IPA, who was best man at Shorten's wedding, tried to show how bad Adam Goodes was by saying he supported extreme leftists like John Pilger. The extreme right is united in trying to insult and humiliate Adam Goodes - what a great choice he was for Australian of the Year. He is truly a national icon deserving the respect and support of every true Australian and democrat. He has obviously done something valuable for our nation and the rednecks hate it.
Simpsons Donkey
Posted Friday, July 31, 2015 - 16:25
This is the utterance of a minion of fascist tyranny, by an Ameriki-Khazarian judge –
“appropriate deference to the executive in matters of national security”. Seig bloody heil.
And that is what happened when Barack Obama sent Dzhokhar Tsarnaev for trial on the capital offense for the Boston Marathon ‘terror drill’, without any evidence, and with copious evidence that pointed to his innocence.
How do we know? Because Obama’s own prosecutors told Tsarnaev’s family just that. “It’s the President’s orders he must die.” Any other evidence needed to classify the great American experiment as a failure?
But the Washington Nazis didn’t stop there. They decided an Australian was subject to their tyranny too. Given Australia is now a nation of catamites to the USA, an easy decision.
And I really admire Julian Assange.
This is from his journal --
“Cast blessings on the profits and prophets of truth, on the liberators and martyrs of truth, the Voltaires, Galileos, and Principias of truth, the Gutenbergs, Marconis and Internets of truth, who are those serial killers of delusion, those brutal, driven and obsessed miners of reality, smashing, smashing, smashing every rotten edifice until all is ruins and the seeds of the new.”
If we would like to know who is an Australian patriot, it is not by absorbing the cheesy rants of the Abbottistas against ISIS, it is by following their treatment of Julian Assange. On that basis, it’s clear Australia is ruled by craven gutless sold-out traitors, from the odious putschist Gillard, who named him a criminal when even the Australian Federal Police declared he had broken no law, to the current bumboy of the Koch Brothers, Atlanticist warmonger Jesuit-Manchurian Candidate Opus Dei fanatic.
Among my circle of alternative truth-seekers many carp at Julian, because they can’t fit him into their system. He’s a wild card, not understandable as Snowden, too accommodating to Guardian katsavs and Le Monde collaborators. The words ‘’limited hangout’’ are muttered.
It’s mostly envy. It’s partly frustration. And it’s mostly misunderstanding that Julian is not a whistleblower, he’s a publisher. But what a publisher.
Assange has unmasked the American rogue state in a way it cannot hide. The vile collusion of the English and Australian governments stain them as servants of empire, and betrayers of their own citizens. That tyranny will kill Julian Assange in a heartbeat. Credit to Ecuador's brave leader Rafael Correa and his foreign minister, who uphold freedom now, when the Stars and Stripes stands for torture.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. drys
Posted Friday, July 31, 2015 - 16:38
last year and this i nominated Julian for an Australian of the Year Award.
Go for it.
nominations close soon.
http://www.australianoftheyear.org.au/nominate/form/
Billy Bangle
Posted Friday, July 31, 2015 - 16:57
You can believe in your somewhat fantastic conspiracy theory if you want. Wheels within wheels within wheels of complexity. I think Julian Assange is just an unpleasant man trying to avoid answering questions.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. MattQ
Posted Friday, July 31, 2015 - 20:26
bilal are you on the wrong thread?
Well said Simpsons Donkey.
drys I would but already nominated Gillian Triggs.
Billy Bangle: I think Julian Assange is just an unpleasant man trying to avoid answering questions.
Say what? Not even the custom-made Swedish prosecutor thinks Assange is avoiding anything other than extradition to deliver him for the American Elite to torture. Not even the Assange-haters think as you do. The article explains that under current legislation(which is true, and you can verify for yourself), even the Brits wouldn't be holding him.
As for 'unpleasant men' trying to avoid answering questions, I assume, then, you did not vote for Abbott. Well done. 90% of Abbott verbalisations turn out to be blatant and morphable lies, while Mr Assange has yet to state a falsehood. So why is the truthful Julian Assange, trying to bring us truths denied us by our 'betters', so unpleasant? Do you know something we don't?
In addition, you deny the inescapable global conspiracy of would-be 'aristocrats'. Free advice: don't believe in conspiracy theories, except those which are true.
Try again. Actually, just try.
Billy Bangle
Posted Friday, July 31, 2015 - 18:09
And whose organised this conspiracy? I cannot think of anyone or any organisation with the competency to undertake it.
Simpsons Donkey
Posted Friday, July 31, 2015 - 19:12
@Billy Bangle,
Truth is, you cannot think. The whole Arab Spring psy-op was exposed by WikiLeaks. So was Collateral Murder. (Watched it? Do so, and come back here and continue your drolleries) Who do you think didn't like it? Most are in the Pentagon.
Are you an Australian? Do you love Australia? Because you're sure as hell not standing up for an Australian slandered, harrassed and prosecuted on trumped-up charges, denied asylum by his own treasonous government of prostitutes and cowards...
Buy into this BS and prove what a sucker you are for American lies.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. Rychard
Posted Friday, July 31, 2015 - 19:18
Billy .. Isn't it past your potty time?
This user is a New Matilda supporter. boganbludging
Posted Friday, July 31, 2015 - 20:00
I think ol' Billy Bangle needs to take the 'red pill and watch his Kansas go bye bye
This user is a New Matilda supporter. MattQ
Posted Friday, July 31, 2015 - 20:35
S'okay Billy, you just lack imagination. The conspirators do things like hiring lobbyists to put corporate profits before actual citizens, form anti-citizen Free Trade Agreements, back neo-liberal political parties, and operate exclusively as 'rent-seekers'. They exist to challenge and steal yours and your children's personal power, to hand down to their children.
The basis of your power is your government, the most powerful institution at your disposal. Lo and behold, governments across the world have been weakened in their capacity(and will) to act on behalf of their citizenry.
I don't hate you mate, but you're not even on the same page as reality[Edit: Written before seeing above post]. For that you need good information, the kind Julian Assange wants you to have.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. RossC
Posted Friday, July 31, 2015 - 20:24
Hang in there Julian. This will pass eventually, and people like JP are helping it along. it must suck big-time being stuck in there, but on the upside, your spanish will be solid, and Ecuador is beautiful.
Billy Bangle
Posted Friday, July 31, 2015 - 20:43
I'm amused. A rational person with a rational argument rarely gets angry. The purveyors of wacky cospiracy theories however do get angry when someone dares attack their sacred cow. Vicious ad hominen attacks follow.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. RossC
Posted Friday, July 31, 2015 - 20:56
....and yet you don't seem angry Billy....go figure?
This user is a New Matilda supporter. boganbludging
Posted Friday, July 31, 2015 - 22:01
Billy Bangle, you must come here for a reason, surely it can't be to tell us we are all wrong in our thinking, multi-millions around the globe-
Conspiracy Theory wasn't a detrimental term, until after the JFK assassination.
Truther can't you see this is doublespeak?
It's tantamount to saying, " the truth is an inconvenience".
Personally I don't much care, it just strikes me as immature, that these 'people', that plan these stitch up's and catastrophies, under the auspices of a 'national security' are really just perpetuating a narrative of a divided world, they are the real threat.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. MattQ
Posted Friday, July 31, 2015 - 22:08
No anger here Billy, just bemusement. Bold type is for emphasis. If I were angry I'd be unable to stop myself using caps, or from oozing condescension. I'm interested in what you have to say.
So. Try again again. Call that an 'attack'?
Billy Bangle
Posted Friday, July 31, 2015 - 23:56
I've never made a
comment whether I consider Julian Assange & Wikileaks to be a good or bad thing. I think it's a good thing. But the Swedish legal authorities wish to interview im in regard to a possible offence.
It's just that choosing between a conspiracy and a stuff-up, I always choose the stuff up. So he got up Marianne Ny's nose & she wants to make it difficult for him. The British are pissed off that he's in contempt of court. The US behaved ridiculously towards BC Manning and Assange is scared.
But if it's so easy to extradite him from allies, why not just extradite him from the UK? Proclaiming there's an active conspiracy between dozens of UK, Sweden and US authorities adds a layer of complexity and implausibility. It's much more likely that each component is behaving in a precisely normal fashion. A Swedish prosecutor is making life difficult for someone who made life difficult for her. The British police have a legal obligation to arrest Assange if they are able to. You would expect them to remain on watch. I would expect the Swedish government to refuse to guarantee Assange that he won't be extradited elsewhere, because they've never guaranteed anyone else that before, that's for the courts to decide, and they don't know what additional evidence of other offences might be presented to the court. I'm sure that most of the Swedish government feels no obligation to help extract Assange from his self-created problem.
Furthermore, if they said something realistic & reasonable - That he won't be extradited to the US in regard to Wikileaks - It would not stop the conspiratorially minded from saying that new evidence will be presented/fabricated of additional offenses in the US, Australia or elsewhere. Julia Gillard & Kevin Rudd are both part of the conspiracy, maybe he could be framed for murder in Australia..
The US government, the UK government, the Swedish government and the Australian government are behaving exactly as one would expect them to if there were no conspiracy. A conspiracy violates Occam's razor and does not add to a reasonable understanding of the situation.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. boganbludging
Posted Saturday, August 1, 2015 - 09:47
'Having said she would go to London in June, Ny didn’t go, but sent a deputy, knowing that the questioning would not be legal under these circumstances, especially as she had not bothered to get Ecuador’s approval for the meeting.'
I think she's got a conscience and knows he's innocent and is stalling, by not going to over to London, a short flight away
What other reason would there be for not interviewing him?
Would you want the infamy of selling him out?
He's not in the 'UK', he's officially on Ecudorean soil.
Exactly, he will be stitched up by the powers that be, for the crime of basically exposing an underbelly, that's beyond the law.
If we call it 'cooperation of agencies, across borders' does it make it more acceptable to you?
You do know that certain security forces have extracted people from one nation and transported them to another nation to torture them and obviously try to hide the facts right?
So look down the, rabbit hole
The western world is run by a fascist machine.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. Stephen10
Posted Saturday, August 1, 2015 - 10:11
Billy did you read the article or have you read anything else in the last 5 years about this travesty? Don't you get suspicious when government and law enforcement agencies react in such a disproportionate manner. I mean the guy hasn't even been charged WITH ANYTHING! After all this time if there was any evidence don't you think it would have been presented by now? Also you mention other charges...what would they be, please? You mention Occam's razor yet I'm not sure you understand it! Consider all of the various government agencies actions in this matter mentioned in the article. That these actions were all taken against a man who was wanted for QUESTIONING on SUSPICION of rape. A more plausable answer would be that the most powerful military spy agency in the world wanted to discredit him and Wikileaks and pulled all of the strings necessary to do so. That's Occam's razor!
bladeofgrass
Posted Saturday, August 1, 2015 - 10:19
Assange has endured the equivalent of
jail time these last three years. He finds himself potentially facing a lot more.
But no one can answer the question: how did assange, a supposedly broke uni student, start a website and immediately commence travelling the world for three years on "Wikileaks business"? Where was the funding coming from, at a time when no-one had heard of wikileaks?
Why did assange suddenly turn his back on a book deal worth more than a million dollars? He has lambasted most books written about him, but singularly refused to set the record straight himself when the opportunity was there.
I invite all to watch Zbigniew Brzezinski, president Carter's security advisor, commenting about wikileaks on America's PBS network. There is a member of Bush's administration on the same show, trotting out well-worn tropes about "national security". But Zbig's musings are far more thought provoking: wikileaks appeared to be leaking on behalf of a foreign intelligence agency, and much of the Intel was "pointed". As in slanted, or biased. Pilger is silent on this point, but much of wikileaks cable revelations were of the anti-Iran variety: Iran wants the bomb, Iran is getting the bomb etc.
Please watch the relevant footage on YouTube before criticising this post.
O. Puhleez
Posted Saturday, August 1, 2015 - 10:42
Billy Bangle:
If you were holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in Canberra, and you were told that it was safe to come out because Tony Abbott himself had given a guarantee you would not be prosecuted, would you then come out? Thus to show yourself for a complete fool & sucker?
Maybe some politicians start out as principled and honest people. But they intevitably compromise; it is part of their daily reality. Compromise on this leads on to compromise on that. And of course, their highest priority in office or out has to be maintaining the authority of the State; not of any principles they might have had a the start.
(John Pilger: an excellent article; by way of a change. If you keep up this standard, you might just find a path for yourself out of the pro-totalitarian left.)
This user is a New Matilda supporter. PAW
Posted Saturday, August 1, 2015 - 12:04
Excellent article John, and by the way, Billy Bangle is actually a pseudonym who goes by the name I.H
Tatifechand1944
Posted Saturday, August 1, 2015 - 12:15
Thank you for the information, and healthy greetings.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. boganbludging
Posted Saturday, August 1, 2015 - 12:24
PAW
Now that's a conspiracy theory with his other ;-)
When you look to posts elsewhere, Billy Bangle appears to go along with Climate Change, so unless it's purely tolling, don't think so.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. Needlemeyer
Posted Saturday, August 1, 2015 - 12:34
Great article!
This user is a New Matilda supporter. boganbludging
Posted Saturday, August 1, 2015 - 13:11
When was it expensive to start a website, especially when you're in the IT industry?
If you're based in Europe, it's not expensive to travel the world, students do it all the time.
Why did assange suddenly turn his back on a book deal worth more than a million dollars?
Might be hard to understand for some, but money is not the primary drive for a far leftist.
Maybe, but when these governments representatives start crying and put the pressure on, you know they've been caught out.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. MattQ
Posted Saturday, August 1, 2015 - 18:37
Ok Billy, respect for the effort. Others commenters have addressed some of your points, fairly, IMHO. I won't go over them again, just focus on what I believe is the 'overarching conspiracy' which is causing so much suffering in the world. I like Occams razor too, and believe I had applied it correctly, much like bb and Stephen10 above. I'm just another plodder trying to do his best with the info I have.
First off, everyone concedes Assange has committed no crime, merely worked in the interests of Joe Blow of planet Earth to give us knowledge of what our 'betters' are up to, and why. IMHO he comes across as an arrogant arsehole, yet he has done me a great service.
Ny was specially appointed as Assanges prosecutor - nothing to do with her nose, it was to do with loyalty to the State not the law. A peculiar loyalty deferring to a foreign power which had promised to 'switch off the intelligence tap' if compliance was not heeded. This is in Catherine's article, and entirely uncontroversial.
So she ignored the law, refused to question Assange in relation to the 2 non-rapes(as reported publicly, over and over and over by the 2 women) on UK soil, as her country's legal conventions dictate she should. At this point she is not a legal expert, but a political agent.
Someone(US executive) is clearly trying to operate outside the law, and have 'induced' cooperation from Sweden to act in their interests, not Sweden or it's citizens(or indeed, America and it's citizens). The dictionary calls that conspiracy - the real aim, while obvious, is never stated. As a conspiracy, it's pretty pathetic, yeah? I don't even count it on the main branch - it's a side-issue, but very telling as to who holds the whip hand. The US executive has become an agency of the 0.1%, as is the Abbott government.
The greater 'conspiracy'(which may not be the best word) is driven by those driving the executive. Once it was the voters, but now they are irrelevant, and their power appropriated by the super-rich who use that power and their wealth to get more power. The aggressive and legally unfounded attack on Assange is proof that the decision makers of the super rich fraternity(like the Koch brothers) are feeling their power threatened.
We are now in the awful position where 75 million (the 0.1%) have captured 7 billion, by capturing their governments. Did you know that in 2010, 93% of ALL income increases accrued to just 1% of the American population?
Perhaps it's less like a 'conspiracy'( and I wholeheartedly agree that most conspiracies are merely a 'cover-up' for the 'stuff-up'), and more like the Serengeti (bear with me). Lions don't 'conspire' against Zebra; preying on them is in their nature. People like Tony Abbott 'aspire' to join those hallowed ranks.
You can do want you want, but I will not allow my children to become 'Zebra' to a psychopathic breed of humans who believe in their own supremacy at the expense of everything and everyone else, just because they 'won the lottery'.
Not without a fight. And I firmly believe that at least 90% of the human race will agree with me. Simply because it is not in their interests to support the sick psycho's who farm them for labour while lobbying government to reduce or eliminate any and all entitlements of citizenry, to pocket the resources themselves, while paying almost no tax.
Billy Bangle
Posted Saturday, August 1, 2015 - 18:11
Wikipedia states that “denialism is exhibited by individuals choosing to deny reality as a way to avoid dealing with an uncomfortable truth”. There are scores of denialist beliefs, with the denialist group choosing not to believe the mainstream scientific view. One such group is creationists who choose to deny the scientific consensus on evolution. Holocaust-deniers choose to deny the historical consensus about death camps in World War II.
Denialism always requires a Conspiracy Theory. Powerful interests, which almost always include the US government, United Nations, other governments, and unnamed industrialists are involved in a high-level conspiracy to suppress your chosen denialist certainty.
Whatever the particular hobby horse, denialists share a mindset, where the favoured belief is somehow suppressed by the political and/or scientific elite.
Some denialist groups are trivial or used as in humour, such as Elvis Lives, or Flat-Earthers.
Other examples of denialist beliefs include 9/11 truthers, Meryl Dorey vaccination denial, Alien Abduction belief, & Obama birthers.
It is my opinion that Julian Assange conspiracy theories, JFK conspiracy theories, Harold Holt conspiracy theories & Princess Diana conspiracy theories are of the same ilk. One’s understanding on the situation is not really enhanced by a conspiracy theory.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. MattQ
Posted Saturday, August 1, 2015 - 19:57
Ok Billy. I am disappointed that you didn't bother to read the article or my explanation of what I was talking about. Rude. Roll over and go back to sleep.
Good luck to you and your family.
Simpsons Donkey
Posted Saturday, August 1, 2015 - 18:51
@Billy Bangle.
Save us the psychobabble. It's comprehensively documented how the 'conspiracy theory' canard is slung out by autistic types who deny history, in your case the history of two terror suspects in Sweden being extradited to Amerika. and then tortured (wrongly, as it turned out). So, hardly a conspiracy theory -- we are speaking of the Yanks' prior behavior. Are you familiar with the name David Hicks?
Every limited company, every government and every bowls club is a conspiracy. Conspiracy is the norm. Your choosing to blind yourself, is a dead giveaway.
What axe are you grinding? Are you suspicious Julian is a rapist? Can you really credit that? If you can, you haven't looked at the evidence. These days, people labelled conspiracy theorists usually turn out to be those who study evidence. In this age of obtuseness, inductive reasoning is a forgotten skill. Cass Sunstein and Philip Zelikow, the neocons who are in charge of hiding 9-11, want conspiracy theorists (i.e. students of evidence) criminalised. Wonder why?
Dragging in denialism is a red herring. We're not discussing climate change here.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. boganbludging
Posted Saturday, August 1, 2015 - 20:25
@Billy Bangle
.
I think you live in denial of the reality, of who the real enemies of the common people are, you see the proof every day.
Simpsons Donkey
Posted Saturday, August 1, 2015 - 22:40
@Billy Bangle,
You are master of the dubious art of the hanging assertion.
My belief is that Winston Churchill was a wise man, who said, ''Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.''
C'mon, enlighten us, who are the real enemies of the common people that we are in denial about?
And, as a corollary, why are Julian Assange and WikiLeaks not helping to reveal these enemies?
And, as a natural consequence, why is it unreasonable to refuse to play into the sadistic hands of those who have tortured daily at Gitmo, murdered and drone-murdered countless thousands of innocents, without charge, trial, evidence or even any jurisdiction?
You know what's truly repulsive about you? You take the part of criminal murderous foreign sadists, against an innocent Australian. Why don't you go live in Amerika, and enjoy the MRAPS and armored police infesting every mile?
Billy Bangle
Posted Sunday, August 2, 2015 - 14:14
The continuing ad hominen abuse illustrates precisely the behaviour of denialism. I've read the article and I've read MattQueue's extraordinary rude abuse. MattQueue, Boganblunderer, Richcard & others cannot comprehend that someone might not share their quasi-religious certainty on this matter. Unable to rationally argue their position, they respond with abuse. It's still a conspiracy theory.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. boganbludging
Posted Sunday, August 2, 2015 - 15:13
You don't appear to be able to make much of an argument yourself.
What do you expect us to nod in agreement when you give no evidence to back you up.
A lot here have done their research, where's yours?
Do you realise, you just became the biggest of hypocrites, for more than one reason.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. MattQ
Posted Sunday, August 2, 2015 - 16:50
lol Billy. Your unfounded 'abuse' charge proves you did not read my comments, and are uninterested in any real discussion. Did you think you could just come in here and run your ignorant mouth off without challenge? You make no arguments, bring no evidence, assert nothing but arbitrary pronouncements which prove you know nothing of relevance about this matter.
Now you can take that as abuse if you like. Goodbye, and good luck to you and your family. Since you haven't the courtesy to read and respond to my earnest, honest and (before your slur) unimpeachably respectful responses to you(go on - read them now - check the dateNtime - no edits), I will not be reading your comments in the future. Unless you subscribe. Maybe.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. aussiegreg
Posted Monday, August 3, 2015 - 07:40
Gee, I would have thought the Mad Marxists who post so religiously to these boards would be thrilled that Pilger has seized back the Conspiracy Theorising trophy for their extreme fringe of political thought, after a brief period in which the yellow jersey was being worn by the Lunar Right.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. MattQ
Posted Monday, August 3, 2015 - 08:28
lol Ag. bb do you really think BB's any heel, in a hole, on a hill,? 'Ad hominen[sic]' twice in the same thread... F I hope not. Who would..what would..*facepalm*
This user is a New Matilda supporter. boganbludging
Posted Monday, August 3, 2015 - 11:02
@ag Marxism = Conspiracy theorists, how you can draw such a parallel, if anything brings your own discernment into question.
dharv
Posted Monday, August 3, 2015 - 18:07
People, Billy Bagle is baiting you. Ignore him.
This user is a New Matilda supporter. aussiegreg
Posted Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - 08:53
@boganbludging
Now, now, you know full well I wasn't making that equivalence claim. Nonetheless you choose to misrepresent me -- just as the psychopathology of Marxism predisposes its sufferers to the paranoid delusions of conspiracy theories, it also predisposes them to what I have called the Marxist Theory of Truth: that truth is what serves the Revolution.
The stubborn refusal of the proletariat to behave according to Marx's theory of Scientific Materialism often leads Marxists to posit conspiracy theories which explain how the inevitable replacement of Capitalism by Socialism still hasn't happened. These will usually involve the Great Satan the United States – like the ones in this article – but sometimes they just involve an American citizen, like Rupert Murdoch.
They always remind me of Adventist Christians, who, when faced with the failure of their predicted timetable for the Second Coming, revise their predictions rather than questioning the religious certainty of their faith. Oh, and rage even more vituperatively against the demonic powers of Satan!
This user is a New Matilda supporter. aussiegreg
Posted Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - 08:56
Wow, dharv, subtle bit of anti-Semitism! I almost missed it…