Paul Craig Roberts

During the Vietnam War the US government tried this on Daniel Ellsberg and the New York Times, but could not get away with it. But times have changed. Today’s Ellsberg–Julian Assange–and today’s New York Times–Wikileaks–are demonized as spies serving foreign intelligence.

The New York Times and The Guardian, both of which published some of the Wikileaks’ material leaked allegedly by Chelsea Manning, escaped prosecution in the case by turning on Assange and helping Washington to demonize him. The rest of the presstitute media joined in, including Wikipedia, which falsely reports the situation as it does most issues that have been turned into controversies. Today hardly anyone knows the true story.

Assange’s troubles began when two Swedish women, attracted by his celebrity, took him home to their beds. One of the women became concerned about an episode of unprotected sex and asked Assange for reassurance by taking an Aides test. He foolishly refused. The woman asked the police if he could be ordered to take the test. It was this question, not a rape charge by either of the women, that spawned the police investigation of rape. The Swedish prosecutorial office investigated and as there was no charge or evidence of rape, closed the case. Assange was free to leave Sweden.

He went to the UK. Inexplicably, but perhaps at the insistence of Washington, another Swedish prosecutor managed to reopen the closed investigation and issued an extradition request for Assange to be returned to Sweden for questioning. NO CHARGES WERE FILED AGAINST ASSANGE.

As Assange was wanted for questioning, not on charges as there were not any, extradition law does not apply. But Washington knew the British courts would respond to Washington’s pressure.

Realizing that he had no protection under the law as Washington can override law at its will, Assange fled to the Ecuadoran Embassy and was given asylum. He resided in the embassy from 2012 until 2019 when a change of government in Ecuador allowed Washington to purchase the government’s withdrawal of Assange’s asylum. In the meantime the second Swedish prosecutor had dropped her investigation as there was no evidence. But now that Assange was in British hands, Washington could have him transferred to Washington’s hands.

Since 2019 Assange has been held in conditions in the UK that human rights activists describe as torture while pro forma extradition hearings played out. Yesterday, after a decade of persecution and imprisonment in one form or another, the UK, a compliant American puppet state, complied with its master’s instructions and agreed to extradite Assange to the US to be tried as a spy for exercising the rights of a free press.

The case, of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with espionage. The US government is out for revenge and has overridden all known law in order to get revenge. In the government’s eyes, Wikileaks’ release of official documents that showed US war crimes and intentional deception of US allies challenged Washington’s control of narratives. Washington concluded that it could not operate in a world of press freedom and elected to destroy the First Amendment’s protection of journalism.

The American, British, and Western media willingly participated in the destruction of their right to report. Possibly Assange will live long enough after his conviction, which given his demonization is certain, for his case to reach the US Supreme Court and have his conviction overturned on constitutional grounds. On the other hand, just as the British courts respond to Washington’s pressure, so do US courts. Just as the executive branch has reduced the US Congress to near impotence, the federal government has chipped away at the independence and courage of the judiciary. The Supreme Court itself is being politicized as the latest appointment demonstrates. In America today, rights, or perhaps more precisely special rights, are the prerogatives of people of color (POC), and white Americans suffer discrimination and diminished rights under the law in university admissions, hiring, promotion, brainwashing in sensitivity training, and in a number of additional ways.

The Founding Fathers relied on a free press protected by the First Amendment to hold government accountable just as much as they relied on the separation of powers. All of these safeguards have now been eroded. The consequence is that we now face the tyranny of unaccountable government which can control all explanations.

Source: IPE (April 21, 2022). IMG: Labour Heartlands