Julian Assange is both a criminal antidemocratic asshole, and a virulent antisemite, watching his life being taken away one year at a time, slowly, painfully, is pure pleasure
He helped Russia and the Republicans trash our democracy. Idc how much good he’s done, he’s dead to me. Now me and mine are target numero uno, thanks to them getting the Turd Reich elected. So fuck Assange. May he forever be in the crosshairs he put us in.
Remember Julian Assange is in a high security prison without conviction awaiting extradition to the US where the conditions he will be incarcerated in will be even worse. He will be burried in the prison with no contact to his friends or family while being tried in the ‘espionage court’ where he is charged. The long-term threat of these conditions have amounted to psychological torture, resulting in a medical state that could end his life at any moment. Julian is literally hanging by a thread. His limited contact with his wife and 2 young children are literally his life line. He won’t have that in US prison. This is a matter of life and death. Torturers torture to intimidate. In Julian’s case it is to intimidate everyone else and in particular the press, so they won’t do what he did and expose serious state criminality to the world. The purpose is to avoid accountability and avoid facing justice.
I always love that people go on and on about “he shared government secrets!” and always convientantly leave out that those “secrets” included that we were “double tapping” targets and killing aid workers and reporters arriving on the scene after the first strike. Or the video of the Apache gunning down a reporter and laughing about it.
A young and talented photo-journalist, Namir Noor-Eldeen, and his driver, Saeed Chmagh, both Reuters employees, were gunned down by a US Apache on 12 July 2007 in the Al-Amin neighbourhood of eastern Baghdad, along with a number of other people on the street. Saeed was wounded and tried to crawl away, only to be shot dead along with the passer-by who stopped his van to help him. Two children in the vehicle were severely wounded. WikiLeaks revealed what really happened that day when they published the Apache footage in 2010 under the name of Collateral Murder, along with the Rules of Engagement in use at the time. Julian is charged with publishing the Iraq RoE (count 14) but not the video. This means the video won’t be shown in court as evidence. It would presumably be too embarassing to the US government to show the footage in court.
That’s tragic but it doesn’t excuse what he did. The us was wrong to do that. Julian is a criminal as well for what he did. Exposing USA crimes does not absolve Julian of his own crimes.
Please keep posting this stuff. I haven’t seen the video in years, but I can still clearly remember it. We need to not let the world forget about the atrocities committed and stop turning the issue into something else. The entire Assange saga has all been over someone embarrassing us and not about the crimes we happily committed. It’s crazy that we pay more attention to him than WAR CRIMES(oh right, it’s not an official “war” 🙄…)
Remember: the indictment of Julian relates to 2010-2011 publications only: the Afghanistan War Logs, Iraq War Logs, Diplomatic Cables, Guantanamo Bay Detainee Briefs. The charges have nothing to do with the 2016 release of Podesta/Clinton’s emails, or with Russia.
You’ve got to read the indictment itself, not the doj’s spin misrepresentation of it. A press release is not an indictment and is not what counts in court.
The press release explains what their allegations are. The DOJ is not going to misrepresent their own indictment. The DOJ alleges he aided Manning in their hack.
And who exactly do you expect to talk about the crimes the US commits? Their allies? Just because the information comes from a biased source doesn’t change the fact that all of the information is accurate. Doesn’t change the extrajudicial killings, illegal detentions, torture…
Like, I’ll give you that he is biased. So what? Are you proud of the things he revealed the US is doing? We commit crimes and then hide behind “national security” when the only “security” being threatened is that of those on top commiting these henious acts and hoping to get away with it.
The source doesn’t change the facts that were presented.
Essentially their policy of leaking everything and anything tended to mostly apply to the US and allies of the US. This would then expose collaborators in places like Belarus and place their lives in danger. Wikileaks would say this was in the name of transparency. However in cases where they were dealing with information being leaked from Russia they would be more careful to editorialize the leaks and protect identities.
Then, aside from that, Assange partook in activities that completely deviated from journalistic protocol and entered the territory of espionage. In particular dealing with the case of chealsea manning, in her communications with Assange, Assange actively aided Chelsea in ways to access restricted information in a way that broke the law. Russian asset or not, that’s a big nono.
Manning’s account should reasonably be called into question, not least because she refused to testify against Assange in 2019 (and was subsequently jailed for 10 months and fined a quarter million).
WikiLeaks’ audience has always been primarily English-speaking, as such their focus is going to be on news related to English-speaking countries. While you’re drawing a difference between two different countries, that could just as easily be explained by a difference in time - people criticised them for their releases in Belarus as being careless and putting lives at risk, so with their later releases around Russia they were more careful.
I just feel like you never would have this impression if you’d just read WikiLeaks’ publications, press releases and social media posts, as well as any other sources on the topics they cover, rather than reading articles about WikiLeaks itself. You would only think WikiLeaks is pro-Russia if you follow a pre-constructed narrative and frame the evidence in a particular way. It’s very murky overall, but I don’t think that viewpoint lines up objectively.
Lol that’s BS, they literally started by leaking mostly secrets of post Soviet states, but nobody gave a shit and editors of news paper there were instructed by their higher ups in Washington not to publish it.
Source: Mediastan (2013)
And yes he probably did have a bias against Hillary, I wonder if that could be because SHE WAS ACTIVELY INVOLVED IN HIS PERSECUTION.
How could a secretary of state be involved in prosecution? That’s completely outside their job description and it isn’t as if that’s a job with a lot of free time.
That’s extremely disengenious, the indictment was secret for years.
Regardless of that the Secretary of State is not providing direct input into the prosecution of an individual.
Lol
In Assange’s specific case he was charged during Trump’s presidency so Hilary could not at any point have been involved in his prosecution.
Buddy. You’ve got to be kidding.
In 2012 and 2013, US officials indicated that Assange was not named in a sealed indictment. […] In November 2018, US prosecutors accidentally revealed that Assange had been indicted under seal in US federal court;
No it wasn’t secret. Once it is filed it is public.
In 2018 Clinton was not in office. She wasn’t involved in his prosecution, which wasn’t going on until Trump took office, and you don’t seem to have anything that proves she was.
That is not how FISA courts work. God damnit, the DOJ admired it themselves and you still won’t believe. Can you spell cognitive dissonance and blind faith?
THE INTEGRAL AND LONG-STANDING USE OF SECRET INDICTMENTS IN UNITED STATES LAW
Regardless of the results that the practice of secretly indicting war criminals may have on future peace talks, it remains a fact that United States law allows indictments to be kept secret. Courts throughout the United States frequently seal indictments. Secrecy is one of the major characteristics of grand jury proceedings from which indictments arise and one that has withstood the test of time. Federal grand jury deliberations and hearings are conducted in secrecy. According to Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure for the United States District Courts,
yea those large troves of archives sure do look cherry picked… (not) In any case, even if you’re right, editorial bias is not a crime. Every major (and minor) news outlet has editorial bias.
So an organisation (WikiLeaks) that collects primary documents from anonymous inside sources whose identity it protects, verifies the authenticity of the documents, analyses them, collaborates with major news outlets around the world in publishing them for maximum journalistic impact, is what, “not a news outlet”, just a “site”? Please.
The fact is, if not for WikiLeaks, Chelsea Manning would likely not have released those documents because every news outlet she contacted first had no secure communication and didn’t take her calls seriously. It was the secure dropbox WikiLeak pioneered that revolutionised journalism. Many of the legacy media have since adopted similar tech.
Julian has won numerous journalism awards. His publications helped end the Iraq war and enabled torture victims to get justice.
“The aim is justice, the method is transparancy.” - Julian Assange
Please read up on the Iraqi gov decision making pre-US withdrawal and get back to me after.
They decided US troops could no longer be immune to prosecution due to what they learnt from certain docs released by WL, describing possible murders. This then spurred the US withdrawal.
Editorial policy is a blatant excuse. Have you scrutinized Fox News, CNN, DW and RT editorial policies? Want them tortured to death too? Nah, that’s just the USA state giving us a lesson to keep our heads down, nothing more, nothing less.
Are those organizations accused of directly being involved on an individual level in hacks against the USA? Because the allegations against Assange are that he directly was involved in the hack.
"The superseding indictment alleges that Assange was complicit with Chelsea Manning, a former intelligence analyst in the U.S. Army, in unlawfully obtaining and disclosing classified documents related to the national defense. Specifically, the superseding indictment alleges that Assange conspired with Manning; obtained from Manning and aided and abetted her in obtaining classified information with reason to believe that the information was to be used to the injury of the United States or the advantage of a foreign nation; received and attempted to receive classified information having reason to believe that such materials would be obtained, taken, made, and disposed of by a person contrary to law; and aided and abetted Manning in communicating classified documents to Assange. "
No they do not do that everyday. If a journalist tells you what secret documents to take they are a co-conspirator in the crime. If all he did was receive the documents completely unsolicited then he would have broken no laws. The allegation is that he was directly involved in the planning stages.
Use the right words, to “held him responsible” means to potentially murder him in the name of democracy. Add to this that the USA state is not going after all these people, nevertheless, they are crossing borders for Assange. They want to show him to the world as an example. Their efforts resemble those they took to get to Osama.
First. No realistically it doesn’t. Second, they should. I never said they shouldn’t. Specifically I said they should hold them all responsible. So I don’t know what you’re getting at. You’re not even addressing what I said.
Is everyone forgetting how Assange had a TV show on RT, the Russian state propaganda network?
And how every single leak about Russia was either heavily redacted, or just not released, when leaks about the US or US allies were not? Even when some of those US ally leaks put people in danger?
Wikileaks showed clear favoritism to Russia, because Russia was footing the bills.
RT has regularly been described as a major propaganda outlet for the Russian government and its foreign policy.[2] Academics, fact-checkers, and news reporters (including some current and former RT reporters) have identified RT as a purveyor of disinformation[58] and conspiracy theories.[65] UK media regulator Ofcom has repeatedly found RT to have breached its rules on impartiality, including multiple instances in which RT broadcast "materially misleading" content.[72]
In 2012, RT's editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan compared the channel to the Russian Ministry of Defence.[73] Referring to the Russo-Georgian War, she stated that it was "waging an information war, and with the entire Western world".[17][74]
As to the show being "independent"... It was made by Assange, specifically to air on RT. Assange was paid for the show, because that's how licensing content works.
Remember the indictment of Julian relates to 2010-2011 publications only: the Afghanistan War Logs, Iraq War Logs, Diplomatic Cables, Guantanamo Bay Detainee Briefs. The charges have nothing to do with the 2016 release of Clinton’s emails, or with WL allegedly helping Hillary loose the election to Trump.
So he publicised that Clinton was illegally managing her emails while in public office (while simultaneously exonerating her of the accusations that Trump actually made) and that means he’s politically aligned with Trump? The guy’s a journalist, he pisses off everyone, that’s how you know he’s good.
The main source for this is a guy who seems bitter that WikiLeaks didn’t publish his story - while other places did. Wikileaks even responded to this (my emphasis):
“As far as we recall these are already public,” WikiLeaks wrote at the time.
“WikiLeaks rejects all submissions that it cannot verify. WikiLeaks rejects submissions that have already been published elsewhere or which are likely to be considered insignificant. WikiLeaks has never rejected a submission due to its country of origin,”
The article immediately goes on to say how the BBC and others reported on it, which would mean WikiLeaks did not need to. No one was reporting on Hillary’s emails, however, in part because it was WikiLeaks’ that got them. Furthermore, they said:
We’re not doing anything until after the election unless its [sic] fast or election related,” WikiLeaks wrote. “We don’t have the resources.”
Anything not connected to the election would be “diversionary,” WikiLeaks wrote.
“WikiLeaks schedules publications to maximize readership and reader engagement,” WikiLeaks wrote in a Twitter message to FP. “During distracting media events such as the Olympics or a high profile election, unrelated publications are sometimes delayed until the distraction passes but never are rejected for this reason.”
They were focusing on news relating to the US election on the run up to the election. If they’d had things to publish about Trump they would have, but Trump already makes so much controversial news about himself its nigh on impossible to come up with anything significant enough, especially that isn’t already being covered elsewhere. But it wasn’t really the time to be reporting on events in Russia.
I really don’t like this article. It makes some pretty damning generalised claims, but when you go into the evidence of the actual transcripts they aren’t as bad as they’re made out to be. Eg, talking about trans things and Chelsea Manning was mostly about trying to keep the story about her imprisonment for releasing secrets, rather than have it devolve into trans issues. Most of it is Assange having an edgy take on topical issues.
The anti-semite-esque stuff about the ((())), hot damn, he seems like an ass. But it’s all very much skirting the bounds of anything explicitly wrong, beyond shit talking in a private chat room.
Timing the release to hurt Clinton and the Democrats fits well enough with Assange’s efforts to target them, there is no suggestion of Russian involvement in timing of this. Russia most likely provided the material (albeit anonymously using WikiLeaks’ drop box system), and could have made suggestions, but WikiLeaks more likely had the say in when it was published.
Most of this reads like them trying to tease information out of Donald Trump Jr. It’s sleazy as hell, but not pro-Russia.
In general, it seems like you wouldn’t naturally take the position of thinking WikiLeaks is pro-Russia without having that idea suggested to you first. You have to follow a pre-established narrative and framing of the evidence to reach that conclusion. Every time you read their publications and their responses to criticism they have a very reasoned reply as to why they published one thing and not something else. They didn’t exist to publish everything in an equal manner, they existed to report on things that were a) not getting coverage, and b) relevant to their primarily English-speaking audience, and then later c) stood the best chance of getting the US off Assange’s back.
It’s definitely important to question his biases, particularly after he started associating with Russia and appearing on RT. However this must also be framed in the reality that the US was really trying to get Assange and WikiLeaks, making Russia just about the only place they could turn to. Furthermore, the US has been after Assange hard since 2010 or earlier, well before most of this happened.
Assange is definitely an ass, and obviously his focus in recent years has been on Clinton and the US - no surprise since they’ve been after him for so long. This, of course, aligned with Russia’s interests in the 2016 election. Russia facilitated and exploited WikiLeaks, while Assange had apparently devolved and got a little more desperate after 4 years stuck in an Ecuadorian embassey. This does not mean he’s pro-Russia, however, just that their interests aligned at one point. Either way, one thing you can say for certain is that WikiLeaks isn’t as active as it once was, 13 years ago.
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