Julian Assange is Free!
A retrospective on the imprisonment of Julian Assange
Today marks a rare occasion as for once we were treated to some good news. Journalist and publisher Julian Assange was released from Belmarsh prison on a plea deal and allowed to return to his Native Australia. This was. as journalist Abby Martin put it “A beautiful moment of hope in the bleakest of times”.
Why was Assange jailed by Western Powers?
Simply put Julian Assange exposed how the sausage gets made and upset powerful people across the world in the process. Below are a list of some of the major scandals broken by Assange and WikiLeaks.
1. Collateral Murder Video : This video shows US forces in Iraq killing civilians and then killing the first responders. It proves that in the “war on terror” the western powers were the real terrorists killing innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Nyet means Nyet: This internal memo from C.I.A. director William Burns shows him saying that further NATO expansion would cause a civil war in eastern Ukraine and eventually trigger a Russian invasion. This document is important for several reasons. First is that it proves US officials knew NATO expansion would provoke a Russian invasion but continued with the policy anyways even going as far as to help install a pro western government in Ukraine in 2014. Second is that it fully debunks the talking point that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was unprovoked because in this memo the head of the CIA is acknowledging that NATO expansion is a provocative action that may trigger an invasion. Third is that it debunks the idea that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is about trying to rebuild the Soviet Union instead of a response to years of NATO expansion and further US meddling in Ukraine.
AQ is on our side in Syria: This email shows that Hillary Clinton advisor and current US national security advisor Jake Sullivan emailed Hillary Clinton to tell her that AQ (short for Al-Qaeda) was on the U.S. side in Syria. This email is significant because it proves the United States and other Western States were not backing so called moderate rebels but instead were arming sectarian extremists in the Syrian conflict. It also proves what author Max Blumenthal wrote about in his book “The Management of Savagery”: that the United States and other Western states were often backing the most extreme elements in the middle east during the “war on terror” to do regime change against foreign governments.
Yadlin wanted Hamas Takeover: This diplomatic cable shows head of Israeli intelligence saying that he would be happy if Hamas took over Gaza because it would allow Israel to treat it as a hostile nation. It cannot be overstated how significant this cable is especially in today’s context. It shows the genocidal apartheid regime of Israel does not actually have any national security concerns about Hamas and instead want them in power as it gives them an excuse to commit genocide against the Palestinian people. After Hamas took control in 2007 Israel placed a brutal blockade on Gaza. The documentary Gaza Fights for Freedom shows that this blockade deprived the population of Gaza from food, electricity and clean drinking water. Palestinians in Gaza were not allowed to leave even by Boat, and they were not even able to fish as the water was policed by Israeli forces. This is what led former U.K prime minister David Cameron to describe Gaza as an open air prison. Today Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza that has so far killed at least 38,000 civilians. The Israeli regime claims this is about defeating Hamas but this cable shows they actually propped up Hamas in order to further brutalize the people of Gaza.
Neera Tanden Libya email: This email shows former Hillary Clinton advisor and shit-lib extraordinaire Neera Tanden floating the idea of taking Libya’s oil. NATO states soon after backed a regime change operation that turned Libya from one of the most successful states in Africa to a failed state with open slave markets. This email is shocking not only because it shows how flippantly American officials suggest stealing sovereign nations oil but also proves the regime change operation was not over “humanitarian” concerns but instead over natural resources, like all US interventions.
This list is just a small handful of bombshell scandals exposed by Julian Assange and Wikileaks. These were all thing the public were not supposed to see. These were meant to be things behind the scenes that would come out when declassified years later and when they were no longer relevant. But because of Assange we know about these scandals now. These scandals have also done massive damage to the establishment’s narrative control (The Ukraine and Gaza cables for example severely undermine the narrative used to justify the current wars there). Assange’s journalism became a thorn in the eye of the war mashine’s narrative control and they needed to make an example of him.
Why didn’t more people Speak out for Assange?
Julian Assange’s prosecution was one of the most clear cut violations of freedom of the Press in history. Even the Obama administration, which prosecuted more whistleblowers than all previous administrations combined refused to prosecute Assange because they admitted it would mean they would have to prosecute other mainstream U.S. outlets for releasing the same material. Even outlets like the New York Times which would normally throw Assange under the bus and smear him came out against his extradition in order to save their own asses. Add to that the fact that Assange’s source for the story he was being prosecuted for, Chelsea Manning was already pardoned and that he was not even an American citizen, the case was clearly bogus and politically charged. So why weren’t more people screaming from the rooftops to free him? The answer to this question is that he was hit with a series of smear campaigns to keep people from looking into his case. He was roped into the Russiagate psy-op and therefore became a bad guy to democratic party loyalists and moronic liberals who know nothing about the world outside of “orange man bad”. He was painted as a Russian spy and traitor (despite not being American) so that American exceptionalist neo-cons would write him off. He was painted as a rapist so that the #meetoo crowd would go after him. Not only are all these smears false as shown in this excellent piece by journalist Caitlin Johnstone but they had nothing to do with the case where Assange was being prosecuted for exposing war crimes. This propaganda campaign was explained eloquently by Nils Melzer, the former UN special Rapporteur on torture who became a strong advocate for Assange. In his article “Demasking the torture of Julian Assange” he explained that he started off believing the smears against Assange until he finally looked into them and realized they were false. Eventually he came to the realization that
In the end it finally dawned on me that I had been blinded by propaganda, and that Assange had been systematically slandered to divert attention from the crimes he exposed.
The propagandists in the mainstream media deserve a lot of the blame for running this propaganda campaign against an innocent man who spent five years in a maximum security prison for heroically exposing war crimes. Mainstream media outlets only occasionally covered the Assange case and only to save their own asses from the “Assange precedent”. But no mainstream media outlet was there to cover his trials while independent journalists Kevin Gosztola and Richard Medhurst covered every trial on a fraction of the budget. The sickest part about the mainstream media’s silence and that every mainstream media outlets has relied on Wikileaks and Assange for their reporting. They knew he was being prosecuted for doing the same journalism they have done (but 100000 times better) but refused to speak out because he upset their masters in powerful places. Mainstream journalist had a shit-fit over CNN airhead Jim Acosta being kicked out of a Trump rally but didn’t have a word to say on the attempted extradition of Assange, a Trump administration policy that actually threatened press feelings and didn’t just hurt the feelings of moron CNN propagandists.
What’s next?
Assange’s freedom is incredible for news for him as a human being as well as for his wife Stella, his kids, his brother Gabriel and his father John. It’s also incredible news for the world because at a time when Western governments are backing a genocide in Gaza we need someone like Assange to expose the freaks in power more than ever. But there is still work to do. As journalist Michael Tracey pointed out on X, Assange’s plea deal means he was forced to accept a guilty plea meaning the precedent is set for other journalists to be prosecuted under the espionage act for possessing “national security” material for journalistic reasons. Assange’s freedom is a beautiful thing and worthy of celebration, but the next step should be to demand the Biden Administration issue a full pardon. As Assange activist Misty Winston put it
I realize we’re all still riding the high but, let’s start thinking about our next moves. A fight for a full pardon and compensation should be at the top of our list. Soak it in and then let’s get back to work.
This development is an incredible step in the right direction but a full pardon is still needed for Julian Assange.