7 Years of Lies About Assange Wont Stop Now
April 12, 2019
One of the few towering figures of our time was reduced to nothing more than
a sex pest and scruffy bail-skipper, writes Jonathan Cook.
By Jonathan Cook
Jonathan-Cook.net
For seven years, from the moment Julian Assange sought refuge in the
Ecuadorean embassy in London, they have been telling us we were wrong, that
we were paranoid conspiracy theorists. We were told there was no real threat
of Assanges extradition to the United States, that it was all in our
fevered imaginations.
For seven years, we have had to listen to a chorus of journalists,
politicians and experts telling us that Assange was nothing more than a
fugitive from justice, and that the British and Swedish legal systems could
be relied on to handle his case in full accordance with the law. Barely a
mainstream voice was raised in his defense in all that time.
From the moment he sought asylum, Assange was cast as an outlaw. His work as
the founder of Wikileaks a digital platform that for the first time in
history gave ordinary people a glimpse into the darkest recesses of the most
secure vaults in the deepest of Deep States was erased from the record.
Assange was reduced from one of the few towering figures of our time a man
who will have a central place in history books, if we as a species live long
enough to write those books to nothing more than a sex pest, and a scruffy
bail-skipper.
Julian Assange, in or before 2006. (Martina Haris via Wikimedia Commons)
Julian Assange, in or before 2006. (Martina Haris via Wikimedia Commons)
The political and media class crafted a narrative of half-truths about the
sex charges Assange was under investigation for in Sweden. They overlooked
the fact that Assange had been allowed to leave Sweden by the original
investigator, who dropped the charges, only for them to be revived by
another investigator with a well-documented political agenda.
They failed to mention that Assange was always willing to be questioned by
Swedish prosecutors in London, as had occurred in dozens of other cases
involving extradition proceedings to Sweden. It was almost as if Swedish
officials did not want to test the evidence they claimed to have in their
possession.
The media and political courtiers endlessly emphasized Assanges bail
violation in the U.K., ignoring the fact that asylum seekers fleeing legal
and political persecution dont usually honor bail conditions imposed by the
very state authorities from which they are seeking asylum.
Ignoring Mounting Evidence
The political and media establishment ignored the mounting evidence of a
secret grand jury in Virginia formulating charges against Assange, and
ridiculed Wikileaks concerns that the Swedish case might be cover for a
more sinister attempt by the U.S. to extradite Assange and lock him away in
a high-security prison, as had happened to whistleblower Chelsea Manning.
They belittled the 2016 verdict of a panel of United Nations legal scholars
that the U.K. was arbitrarily detaining Assange. The media were more
interested in the welfare of his cat.
Pro-Assange protesters outside Ecuadorean Embassy in London, June 16, 2013.
(Ricardo Patiño via Flickr)
Pro-Assange protest at Ecuadorean Embassy in London, June 16, 2013. (Ricardo
Patiño via Flickr)
They ignored the fact that after Ecuador changed presidents with the new
one keen to win favor with Washington Assange was placed under more and
more severe forms of solitary confinement. He was denied access to visitors
and basic means of communications, violating both his asylum status and his
human rights, and threatening his mental and physical wellbeing.
Equally, they ignored the fact that Assange had been given diplomatic status
by Ecuador, as well as Ecuadorean citizenship. Britain was obligated to
allow him to leave the embassy, using his diplomatic immunity, to travel
unhindered to Ecuador. No mainstream journalist or politician thought this
significant either.
They turned a blind eye to the news that, after refusing to question Assange
in the U.K., Swedish prosecutors had decided to quietly drop the case
against him in 2015. Sweden had kept the decision under wraps for more than
two years.
It was a freedom of information request by an ally of Assange, not a media
outlet, that unearthed documents showing that Swedish investigators had, in
fact, wanted to drop the case against Assange back in 2013. The UK, however,
insisted that they carry on with the charade so that Assange could remain
locked up. A British official emailed the Swedes: Dont you dare get cold
feet!!!
Documents Destroyed
Most of the other documents relating to these conversations were
unavailable. They had been destroyed by the U.K.s Crown Prosecution Service
in violation of protocol. But no one in the political and media
establishment cared, of course.
Similarly, they ignored the fact that Assange was forced to hole up for
years in the embassy, under the most intense form of house arrest, even
though he no longer had a case to answer in Sweden. They told us
apparently in all seriousness that he had to be arrested for his bail
infraction, something that would normally be dealt with by a fine.
Stencil. (OperationPaperStorm, CC by 2.0.)
Stencil. (OperationPaperStorm, CC by 2.0.)
And possibly most egregiously of all, most of the media refused to
acknowledge that Assange was a journalist and publisher, even though by
failing to do so they exposed themselves to the future use of the same
draconian sanctions should they or their publications ever need to be
silenced. They signed off on the right of the U.S. authorities to seize any
foreign journalist, anywhere in the world, and lock him or her out of sight.
They opened the door to a new, special form of rendition for journalists.
This was never about Sweden or bail violations, or even about the
discredited Russia-gate narrative, as anyone who was paying the vaguest
attention should have been able to work out. It was about the U.S. Deep
State doing everything in its power to crush WikiLeaks and make an example
of its founder.
It was about making sure there would never again be a leak like that of
Collateral Murder, the military video released by Wikileaks in 2007 that
showed U.S. soldiers celebrating as they murdered Iraqi civilians. It was
about making sure there would never again be a dump of U.S. diplomatic
cables, like those released in 2010 that revealed the secret machinations of
the U.S. empire to dominate the planet whatever the cost in human rights
violations.
Now the pretense is over. The British police invaded the diplomatic
territory of Ecuador invited in by Ecuador after it tore up Assanges
asylum status to smuggle him off to jail. Two vassal states cooperating to
do the bidding of the U.S. empire. The arrest was not to help two women in
Sweden or to enforce a minor bail infraction.
No, the British authorities were acting on an extradition warrant from the
U.S. And the charges the U.S. authorities have concocted relate to
Wikileaks earliest work exposing the U.S. militarys war crimes in Iraq
the stuff that we all once agreed was in the public interest, that British
and U.S. media clamored to publish themselves.
Still the media and political class is turning a blind eye. Where is the
outrage at the lies we have been served up for these past seven years? Where
is the contrition at having been gulled for so long? Where is the fury at
the most basic press freedom the right to publish being trashed to
silence Assange? Where is the willingness finally to speak up in Assanges
defense?
Its not there. There will be no indignation at the BBC, or the Guardian, or
CNN. Just curious, impassive even gently mocking reporting of Assanges
fate.
And that is because these journalists, politicians and experts never really
believed anything they said. They knew all along that the U.S. wanted to
silence Assange and to crush Wikileaks. They knew that all along and they
didnt care. In fact, they happily conspired in paving the way for todays
kidnapping of Assange.
They did so because they are not there to represent the truth, or to stand
up for ordinary people, or to protect a free press, or even to enforce the
rule of law. They dont care about any of that. They are there to protect
their careers, and the system that rewards them with money and influence.
They dont want an upstart like Assange kicking over their applecart.
Now they will spin us a whole new set of deceptions and distractions about
Assange to keep us anaesthetized, to keep us from being incensed as our
rights are whittled away, and to prevent us from realizing that Assanges
rights and our own are indivisible. We stand or fall together.