Julian Assange & The US War on Whistleblowers
By louisehartmann
On Sunday, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange addressed his supporters from the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he’s been holed up for two months trying to avoid extradition to Sweden and perhaps the United States. He thanked Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa for granting him political asylum – and then pivoted toward the United States – urging President Obama to, “do the right thing.”
Assange said the United States must end its “witch hunt” against Wikileaks and release Army private Bradley Manning who’s been imprisoned for more than two years and has yet to see a trial. The Julian Assange saga is far from over – since the British government refuses to grant him safe passage out of the country to Ecuador. We now have political prisoners trying to flee the Western world – which is indicative of a large shift happening in the global power structure.
Comments
#2
The United States is the tyrant in this (and much more). I doubt we would do the right thing as a people even if Obama is re-elected, especially if these Congressional seats remain in the enemy's hands.
#3
Daniel Ellsberg did not go to prison because of the illegal bumbling of the U.S. government in getting its stuff together.
I don't know if that would work today--with the judicial system as it is.
#4
The larger the bureacracy, the more tempting it is to defend itself at all costs. Our country has become its own inertial force. Right, wrong, or indiferent... nobody wants to take any responsibility or take the initiative needed to actually change policy. Jullina's best chance for being granted immunity as a whistleblower impinged on the support from Americans who are pre-conditioned to automatically disparage anyone with an accuization on the table for sexual misconduct. Whether there is fire there or not seems immaterial. What is most evident is that the US government with the cooperation of its allies is closing ranks. Nothing divulged has been near the critical or sensitive nature as the outing of Valarie Phlame. If anything, Mr. Assange did us a favor by shedding some light on the subject. It is a tough day for newscasters and even tougher time for the truth.
#5
This leak is dynamite. Yes, one could agree that it is not the same as the outing of Valerie Plame, however, just as bad, could even bring out the practice or act of deliberately inflicting severe physical pain and possibly injury on prisoners, through psychological or animal torture like practice surfacing any that includes “Waterboarding”. Some military minds love to hate, these mongers have no boundaries. And, they maybe our own military, or worse, subcontractors. If waterboarding is in these messages, America has an obligation to bring Bush and Cheney to justice.
Torture is a crime and against military code, the Constitution of the United States also of the Constitution of the United Nations and the International community. The struggle here is with the electromagnetic journalist, for addressing the first time in American history the possibility for a former President and Vice President to be tried and maybe found guilty of war crimes besides sacking the treasury. However we know Fox News will not cover such an issues.
The Arabs are substantially invested in Fox News. That coupled with Bush Arab money ties far exceed what would likely be needed to condemn Bush for treason. But just as the Fox News medium will dance around the same fundamentals that characterize Romney as a “possible felon”. No ladies and gentlemen of America, bold as Laura Ingram keeps insisting, Obama did not call Romney a felon. No Obama, nor his staff, did not call Romney a felon; they said he could have committed a felon. Hannity, Medved, Bill Cunningham, Dennis Prager, and of course the political weasel Mark Levin, of course the famous Rush Limbaugh who claims to take a loan out from God for his talent all do the same rant in concert. They have no recourse but to lie like hell.
A scandal such as this from Watergate to Waterboard might destroy a large proportion of the Republican Party forever. However, it’s still my opinion America will never have a Golden Age if George Bush and Dick Cheney never answer for their American leadership to hell, especially in the name of patriotism. As one watches Fox News, or even MSNBC and CNN telecast lies or twisted truths for years, then to have turn around to admit now they know the Bush administration is a total fraud would be a world class embarrassment of unknown proportions for the elite class of American electromagnetic journalism. So, what’s best to do?
This is the moment, and to be sure, the one President Barrack Obama is struggling with. It will be very telling; If President Obama does not do anything to address this. America will slide further into the abyss of corruption, hate, and a deep, immeasurable scalar space profound unfathomable bottomless gulf we find that the free fall Bush handed off has no end but to destroy America. The Wahhabi plan then is a success, their Bush connection worked.
#6
HANOI, Vietnam — Vietnamese police arrested one of the country's wealthiest banking tycoons for undisclosed financial crimes, triggering sharp falls Tuesday on stock markets in the economically troubled nation.
The government has pledged to reform the banking sector, which experts say is laden with bad debt, poorly regulated and at possible risk of collapse.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20120821/as-vietnam-arrest/
Now if we can only get our government to do the same here!
Instead they keep us distracted by going after Julian Assange.
#7
And the rape charges appear to be trumped up charges made only by the Swedish police.
"As a recent episode of the Australian documentary show Four Corners states, there are only two semi-official complaints that were made, and both were apparently part of an effort merely to get Assange to get tested for STDs — and one of the women, when she saw that the Swedish police instead intended to arrest Assange on rape charges, was so horrified at being “railroaded” (her term) that she refused even to put her signature onto the testimony she’d already given:..."
by Phoenix Woman in reply to the story: "Assange Accuser Named by Former British Ambassador on BBC Show"
http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2012/08/20/assange-accuser-named-by-for...
Four Corners transcript:
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2012/07/19/3549280.htm#transcript
And video:
http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/news/fourcorners/video/20120723_assange_288p...
#8
Eight BIG PROBLEMS with the “case” against Assange (MUST-READ by Naomi Wolf)
Something Rotten in the State of Sweden: 8 Big Problems with the ‘Case’ Against Assange
by Naomi Wolf
Exclusive to News from Underground
"Now that Andrew Kreig, of the Justice Integrity Project, has confirmed Karl Rove’s role as an advisor to the Swedish government in its prosecution of Julian Assange on sexual misconduct charges, it is important that we note the many glaring aberrations in the handling of Assange’s case by the authorities in Sweden.
Dr. Brian Palmer, a social anthropologist at Uppsala University, explained on Kreig’s radio show last month that Karl Rove has been working directly as an advisor to the governing Moderate Party. Kreig also reported, in Connecticut Watchdog, that the Assange accusers’ lawyer is a partner in the law firm Borgström and Bodström, whose other name partner, Thomas Bodström, is a former Swedish Minister of Justice. In that office, Bodström helped approve a 2001 CIA rendition request to Sweden, to allow the CIA to fly two asylum-seekers from Sweden to Egypt, where they were tortured. This background compels us to review the case against Assange with extreme care.
Based on my 23 years of reporting on global rape law, and my five years of supporting women at rape crisis centers and battered women’s shelters, I can say with certainty that this case is not being treated as a normal rape or sexual assault case. New details from the Swedish police make this quite clear. Their transcript of the complaints against Assange is strikingly unlike the dozens of such transcripts that I have read throughout the years as an advocate for victims of sex crimes.
"
Specifically, there are eight ways in which this transcript is unusual:
1) Police never pursue complaints in which there is no indication of lack of consent.
2) Police do not let two women report an accusation about one man together.
3) Police never take testimony from former boyfriends.
4) Prosecutors never let two alleged victims have the same lawyer.
5) A lawyer never typically takes on two alleged rape victims as clients.
6) A rape victim never uses a corporate attorney.
7) A rape victim is never encouraged to make any kind of contact with her assailant and she may never use police to compel her alleged assailant to take medical tests.
8) Police and prosecutors never leak police transcripts during an active investigation because they face punishment for doing so.
Each of these points have been violated by the Swedish system and each are much more detailed in the article.
http://markcrispinmiller.com/2011/02/eight-big-problems-with-the-case-ag...
#9
Great post we are in agreement. The Saudi minority ownership of FOX is almost never mentioned and quickly glossed over. Much like the cover up of the 9/11 connections with the Saudis and the Bushes that Russ Baker doggedly tries to get out into the light, with little success to date.
#10
I certainly agree with what you have said...but, Obama and Holder are wearing false teeth...all the better to service the criminal elite with. They will both contort to any position that the ruling elite dictates...just bend over and touch your toes now boys...here comes choo-choo! And so the US catches AIDS, withers, and dies a hard death.
The mumbled lies that these sycophants utter in pretense of catering to their flocks of true believers will only continue to serve their real masters who owns all the gold...because it might prevent the people from rioting in the streets just a little bit longer.
Obama continues in Bush's footsteps so he will never do or say anything to risk going after and setting precedence and risking suffering the same fate that his predecessor would experience. Obama is in too deep. He's dirty! But he wants your vote so he will get bolder in his lies and convince some incorrigibly hopeless voters to vote for him again.
Holder goes only after the cut and dry, sure thing, little guys who confesses. He has no balls to go after the big guys who can put up a fight. Holder is a pussy! The big guys know it and get away with mass murder...and looting the treasury.
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Quick! erect an Iron Curtain around the Western World before too many escape! With 750 Million hollow point bullets zipping through American air space it might be safer in Mexico with the drug lords.
Julian Assange reminds me of that frog in that poster with the stork trying to swallow a frog, head first, who is strangling the stork at the same time...the caption is "Never give up!". Frogs can go much longer without having to breathe than the stork can. If the Russians can overthrow their Tzars and the French their Kings then the people of the US can overthrow the criminal ruling elite that has stolen our democracy.
Long live Julian Assange and Wikileaks...and fie on his oppressors.
I believe that Assange, or Wikileaks, has a lot more juicy things that the world would like to know about the Western World...especially the US...that he is holding back in the event he is taken or killed by the US. Could this be the reason why the TSA other government groups is preparing for a mass uprising? Or is it because the major banks will fail and no one will be able to get any cash? Or that they will renege on paying social security? Our future does not look very promising..that's for sure!