All Must Rise For The People's Champion Julian Assange

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been evicted from the Ecuadorian Embassy and arrested by the London Metropolitan Police on orders of the United States, which wants him extradited to face a death penalty charge related to his exposure of U.S. war crimes in Iraq.* This shocking contempt for democracy and human rights violates both Ecuadorian and international law. 

Assange was granted political asylum by then Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa in 2012, along with Ecuadorian citizenship last year. Those protections were stripped away on orders of current president Lenin Moreno, who wants revenge for Assange having exposed his massive money laundering operations in the days leading up to his expulsion and arrest. Correa, who cut off Assange's internet connection in 2016 for "interfering" in the U.S. presidential elections, denounced Moreno as "the greatest traitor in Ecuadorian and Latin American history" for "allow[ing] the British police to enter our embassy in London to arrest Assange."

Alone among Democratic leaders so far, Hawaii representative Tulsi Gabbard rose to the defense of Assange. "The purpose of arresting Assange," tweeted the Democratic presidential aspirant, is "to send a message to the people, especially journalists, to be quiet and don't get out of line. If we the people allow the government to control us through fear, we are no longer free, we are no longer America."

The Trump administration wants to try Assange on charges that he conspired with Chelsea Manning in 2010 to steal the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs obtained by Wikileaks, but as with Russiagate, no evidence has emerged with which to substantiate the charge. [In any event, the American public clearly has a right to know the grim details of Washington's war policies - ed.]

What Assange and Manning actually did was to document grotesque crimes of war, the casual slaughter of Iraqi men, women, and children, Reuters journalists, and Red Cross workers trying to help such victims, that were part and parcel of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Manning leaked 500,000 documents from the Pentagon and State Department, along with the 2007 video of U.S. helicopter pilots nonchalantly gunning people down in the streets as though playing a video game. In a nutshell, Assange's "crime" is having revealed the hypocrisy, wholesale massacre, torture, bribery, and intimidation, that are at the heart of U.S. policy in the Middle East.

The establishment press initially published the Wikileaks documents, but then turned on Assange, eagerly joining in a smear campaign to destroy his reputation.  The coordinated propaganda operation was confirmed in a leaked Pentagon document prepared by the Cyber Counterintelligence Assessments Branch dated March 8, 2008. The document called on the United States to eradicate the "feeling of trust" that is the "center of gravity" for Wikileaks. In other words, they seek to destroy Assange's reputation for having revealed the truth. Keep this in mind as you prepare to send off your tax return on Monday.

Assange published 70,000 hacked e-mails belonging to the Democratic National Committee and senior Democratic Party officials. The e-mails were copied from the accounts of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman in 2016. The Podesta e-mails exposed that Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two major ISIS funders, had donated millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation. They also revealed a payment of $657,000 from Goldman Sachs to Hillary Clinton for speeches. Naturally, one shouldn't assume such modest recompense influenced her views, although she was caught in the e-mails saying that she favored "open trade and open borders," and believed Wall Street executives were best situated to manage the economy, which directly contradicted what she was telling voters. Other e-mails demonstrated Democratic efforts to insure that Donald Trump emerged as the GOP nominee for president, and that Hillary had advance knowledge of presidential debate questions. They also exposed that she was the main architect of the regime-change war in Libya, which left the ruined country in the hands of terrorist gangs, results she is proud of and which she thought would enhance her presidential stature and image. 

Although the evidence couldn't be clearer that HRC's 2016 loss to a reality TV show clown was self-inflicted, corporate Democrats claim to this day that Russia alone caused the defeat, that the Podesta e-mails in particular were pilfered by Putin's hackers. Unfortunately for them, Hillary was already widely detested for her disgraceful record, which renders the Podesta e-mails just another dump in the Clinton cesspool. In any event, ex-FBI director James Comey says that the Podesta e-mails were probably delivered by an intermediary, and Assange insists that "state actors" were not involved. 

Further Wikileak-provided e-mails exposed the hacking tools used by U.S. intelligence agencies to interfere in foreign elections - a regular CIA practice - including in the French elections, as well as the internal conspiracy against British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn by Labour members of parliament. It is not difficult to see why Assange is so bitterly hated by the Washington establishment, Democratic and Republican party alike.

Let us recall that it was Wikileaks that intervened to save Edward Snowden, who had revealed how intelligence agencies were engaged in wholesale spying against the U.S. public, as he flew from Hong Kong to Moscow, where he lives in exile to this day. (Snowden faced extradition to the U.S., just as Assange does.) The Snowden leaks also showed that Assange was on a U.S. "manhunt target list."

It shouldn't need stressing, but in our civics-starved culture we can't repeat too often that without the courage and integrity of people like Assange, there can be no First Amendment, no independent journalism, no democracy worthy of the name.  

On his way to the White House Trump denounced the media as the "enemy of the people," while simultaneously declaring "I love Wikileaks." But now that he has power, he wants to crucify Julian Assange. Nothing better illustrates what a hypocritical fraud he is.

If we do not now rise to the occasion and defend Assange, fake news and the infantile tweets of moronic leaders will be all we ever get to see.

*As of now (5/25/19) it looks like Assange will NOT face a death penalty charge, but rather, life in prison.

Sources: 

"Dark Day For Journalism As Assange Arrested," Jimmy Dore Show (You Tube), April 13, 2019

"Julian Assange Arrested in London; Faces U.S. Charge Related to Chelsea Manning Leaks," Democracy Now, April 11, 2019

"You don't grant asylum to someone because he's nice," interview with Rafael Correa on France 24 English, You Tube, April 13, 2019