thelibertybeacon--2020-10-01--Gates’ Vaccine Spreads Polio Across Africa

ER Editor : Please be aware that this topic is being flagged on Facebook as fake news as per statements from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation .
Microsoft founder Bill Gates has made himself the global vaccine czar as his foundation spends billions on spreading new vaccines globally .
While much attention has been given to the role of Gates behind the corrupt WHO in promoting radical untested coronavirus vaccines , the record of the Gates Foundation pushing an oral polio vaccine across Africa is a matter of concern .
The UN has just recently admitted that new cases @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Africa from an oral polio vaccine developed with strong support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation .
It mirrors what happened in the USA in the 1950s .
This is worth a closer look .
The vaccine industry loves to cite development of vaccines in the 1950s as solely responsible for eradicating what was a severe paralytic illness that reached a peak in the USA after World War II and , as well , in England , Germany and other European countries .
Now , despite the fact that no new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have been detected in all Africa since 2016 , the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and their allies in the WHO proclaimed that Gates ’ $ 4 billion ten-year African vaccination campaign using an oral polio vaccine had finally eliminated the dreaded polio .
That was at the end of August .
One week later on September 2 , WHO was forced to backtrack and admit that new polio outbreaks in Sudan were linked to an ongoing series of new polio cases in Chad and Cameroon .
According to the WHO , further @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than a dozen African countries including Angola , Congo , Nigeria and Zambia .
But the shocking thing is that the outbreaks are all reportedly caused by the Gates-backed oral polio vaccine .
In a revealing comment , a CDC virologist involved with WHO and the Gates Foundation in the Africa mass polio vaccination campaign , part of something called the Global Polio Eradication Initiative , admits the vaccine is creating significantly more cases of polio paralysis than the deceptively named “ wild polio ” disease .
“ We have now created more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have stopped , ” virologist Mark Pallansch of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention admitted .
The Global Polio Eradication Initiative ( GPEI ) is a combined effort of the WHO , UNICEF , the U.S. CDC , the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Rotary International .
Bill Gates was reportedly responsible for driving the campaign to develop the liquid oral polio vaccine and massively administer it to the populations of Africa and Asia , despite the near absence of any cases of “ wild polio.
” According to one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ initiative , from Rotary International , When someone asked him , why polio , which had all but vanished worldwide , Gates replied , “ Polio is a terrible disease.
” That reply seems curious , as there are far more pervasive deadly diseases out there including malaria or chronic diarrhoea due to unsafe water , and poor sanitation across Africa that causes death by dehydration , poor absorption of nutrients or infectious complications .
I would argue that both those are also “ terrible.
” In 2016 chronic diarrhoea was listed by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of death in children below five worldwide .
In Africa it was cause of almost 653,000 deaths , yet Mr. Gates and friends seem to be interested in other things .
The insistence of Gates on pushing massive vaccination of a new oral polio vaccine his foundation backed at a time when polio even in poor countries of Asia and Africa is virtually non-existent , should ring alarm bells loudly .
If his goal is to help more African children lead healthy lives , simple water treatment projects would save far more lives @ @ @ @ @ @ @ polio vaccine we are not being told of ?
Is there aluminum as adjuvant that is documented to be a central nervous system paralytic ?
Or other toxins ?
The Gates Foundation spent almost $ 4 billion to develop and administer the oral polio vaccine throughout the poorest countries in the world as of 2018 .
This despite that WHO stated that the cases of polio in Pakistan and Afghanistan went from about 350,000 per year to 33 in 2018 .
There hasn ’ t been a case in the Americas or Western @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was launched years ago .
Here it gets into some very suspicious linguistic games on the part of WHO , Gates and company .
They are trying to cover their deeds by claiming that most of the polio cases are actually something they decided to call acute flaccid paralysis ( AFP ) .
That is a debilitating condition with a clinical picture virtually identical to polio .
But it keeps the “ polio ” numbers down .
According to the US CDC , there were over 31,500 documented cases of acute flaccid paralysis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This is in addition to what they call vaccine-associated polio paralysis ( VAPP ) .
Yet from the point of clinical symptoms , vaccine-derived polio , wild polio and acute flaccid paralysis are identical , as is acute flaccid myelitis ( AFM ) , a subtype of AFP .
With this proliferation of serious medical-sounding names to describe what produces the same medical symptoms , we have huge grounds for manipulation .
A paper written by Neetu Vashishi and Jacob Puliyel published in the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics in 2012 wrote about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there : Defining away cases of poliomyelitis or Infantile Paralysis as it was called during the epidemic in the USA after World War II , went back to the 1950s , and to since-suppressed deadly scandals involving the first purported polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk .
Regarded today as a medical hero , the truth of Salk was anything but heroic .
The upsurge in cases of what were then labelled poliomyelitis or infantile paralysis in the United States began to literally explode around 1946 .
Relevant to note is that a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now-banned insecticide known as DDT , was being promoted by the US government as a “ safe ” control of mosquitoes and flies said to be the “ carriers ” of polio virus .
What has since been all but erased from the government record is the precise match of the number of cases of children with symptoms of acute polio with the degree of acute DDT spraying , and the equally precise mirrored decline of human polio cases from the late 1940s into the 1950s , after a sharp decline in DDT @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Morton S. Biskind argued in public that , “ the most obvious explanation for the polio epidemic : central nervous system diseases… such as polio are actually the physiological and symptomatic manifestations of the ongoing government- and industry-sponsored inundation of the world ’ s populace with central nervous system poisons.
” The Salk polio vaccine was first deployed in 1955 , that is two years after the dramatic decline in registered polio cases .
That fact was conveniently forgotten as the narrative was promoted that the new vaccine alone was eradicating the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by doctors and others to the US Congress that there was a clear connection between the summer polio epidemics to summer-used heavy metal pesticides such as DDT .
They were ignored .
The promotion of DDT as a harmless insecticide was so pervasive that kids followed behind trucks spraying the streets and swimming pools were sprayed with DDT , believing it harmless .
Highly emotional advertising campaigns proclaimed that deadly polio was mysteriously transmitted by insects and that DDT would protect .
Farmers were told to repeatedly spray their dairy cows with DDT @ @ @ @ @ @ @ DDT thus contaminated the milk supply .
Use of DDT exploded by the end of the 1940s across the USA .
As one person described it , The vaccine research of Jonas Salk as well as of his rival , Albert Sabin , was funded by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis , later known as the March of Dimes .
Salk convinced the US health authorities in 1954 that his polio vaccine contained only inactive virus ( IPV ) , and was absolutely safe .
He was able to convince the regulatory @ @ @ @ @ @ @ procedures which had been suggested for the detection of possible residual live virus ” in his vaccine should be dispensed with .
Field trials of the Salk vaccine in 1954 were exposed by the Journal of the American Statistical Association : “ …59 per cent of the trial was worthless because of the lack of adequate controls… ” That report was ignored by the US Department of Health and the National Foundation proclaimed the Salk vaccine ready to mass distribute in spring of 1955 .
Already in 1955 alarming results from the Salk @ @ @ @ @ @ @ manufactured by Cutter Laboratories , was administered to over four hundred thousand people , mostly school children .
Within days , reports of paralysis began surfacing .
Within a month , the mass vaccination program against polio had to be suspended .
In June of 1956 , polio cases began to increase sharply in Chicago in children who had received the Salk vaccine .
The National Foundation sent an urgent letter to its members urging them to , “ give reassurance that the present Salk vaccine is safe and effective to patients , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ still needlessly doubt it… ” Salk ’ s vaccine had caused seventy thousand ( 70,000 ) cases of muscle weakness , one hundred and sixty-four ( 164 ) cases of severe paralysis and ten deaths .
Three fourths of the victims remained permanently paralyzed .
Secretary of Health , Education , and Welfare stepped down and the director of the NIH resigned .
The Cutter incident was quickly downplayed by the Government and vaccinations resumed after 21 days pause , using vaccines from Wyeth Labs .
Those too produced cases of paralysis .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Salk vaccine ’ s introduction , the polio death rate in the US had declined on its own by 47 percent ; England had observed a similar pattern .
Following the use of Salk ’ s vaccine between 1955 and 1963 , cases of polio in the US increased—by 50 percent from 1957 to 1958 , and by 80 percent between 1958 and 1959 .
This was concealed by a US Government change in defining polio , much as the WHO and CDC do today in Africa .
Diseases that had previously been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ polio ” began to be reported as separate diseases .
One of these was aseptic or viral meningitis , an infectious disease that is difficult to distinguish from poliovirus , or transverse myelitis—a rare spinal cord inflammation , or the Guillain-Barré syndrome .
Were all these a result of widespread toxins used in the vaccine ?
The Government and vaccine industry was not interested in knowing or telling .
Finally in 1963 the US Government replaced Salk ’ s IPV vaccine with an attenuated oral polio vaccine ( OPV ) developed by Albert @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , it , too , was and is capable of giving its recipients polio or polio symptoms .
Salk testified before a Senate subcommittee in 1977 that the Sabin oral polio vaccine had caused most of the polio cases in the US since the early 1960s .
The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis , which funded both Salk and his rival Sabin in development of polio vaccines in the 1950 ’ s , was run by two doctors from the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research– Dr. Henry Kumm , who had spent 23 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dr. Thomas Rivers .
Henry Kumm went over to the National Foundation in 1951 at the peak of the polio epidemic .
In May 1953 , Kumm became Director of Polio Research at NFIP .
Notably , during World War II , Kumm had served as civilian consultant to the Surgeon General of the US Army in Italy , directing field studies for the use of DDT against malarial mosquitoes .
Thomas Rivers was from 1922 head of the infectious disease ward at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research , becoming the institute @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chairman of committees on research and vaccine advisory for the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis , he oversaw the clinical trials of Jonas Salk ’ s vaccine by Dr Kumm ’ s group .
It could be said that the National Foundation was a mask for a massive Rockefeller polio vaccine project .
That National Foundation was run by Rockefeller doctors .
This is very much what the Gates Foundation is doing with its turbo-charged oral polio vaccine in Africa where polio had almost vanished before the mass vaccine campaign of WHO and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to eugenics and to dangerous vaccines seems to unite both the Rockefellers and Bill Gates , who in many ways is merely the heir and continuation of the deadly eugenics work of the Rockefellers .
All this should give pause before regarding the pronouncements of Bill Gates on coronavirus and his favored vaccines as the scientific good truth .
F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer , he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics , exclusively for the online magazine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ article was originally published .
He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization .

ER Editor: Please be aware that this topic is being flagged on Facebook as fake news as per statements from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates has made himself the global vaccine czar as his foundation spends billions on spreading new vaccines globally. While much attention has been given to the role of Gates behind the corrupt WHO in promoting radical untested coronavirus vaccines, the record of the Gates Foundation pushing an oral polio vaccine across Africa is a matter of concern.
The UN has just recently admitted that new cases of infantile paralysis or polio have resulted in Africa from an oral polio vaccine developed with strong support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It mirrors what happened in the USA in the 1950s. This is worth a closer look.
Vaccines that cause polio
The vaccine industry loves to cite development of vaccines in the 1950s as solely responsible for eradicating what was a severe paralytic illness that reached a peak in the USA after World War II and, as well, in England, Germany and other European countries. Now, despite the fact that no new cases of “wild polio” virus have been detected in all Africa since 2016, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and their allies in the WHO proclaimed that Gates’ $4 billion ten-year African vaccination campaign using an oral polio vaccine had finally eliminated the dreaded polio. That was at the end of August.
One week later on September 2, WHO was forced to backtrack and admit that new polio outbreaks in Sudan were linked to an ongoing series of new polio cases in Chad and Cameroon. According to the WHO, further polio cases have been registered in more than a dozen African countries including Angola, Congo, Nigeria and Zambia. But the shocking thing is that the outbreaks are all reportedly caused by the Gates-backed oral polio vaccine.
In a revealing comment, a CDC virologist involved with WHO and the Gates Foundation in the Africa mass polio vaccination campaign, part of something called the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, admits the vaccine is creating significantly more cases of polio paralysis than the deceptively named “wild polio” disease. “We have now created more new emergences of the virus than we have stopped,” virologist Mark Pallansch of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention admitted. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) is a combined effort of the WHO, UNICEF, the U.S. CDC, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Rotary International.
Bill Gates was reportedly responsible for driving the campaign to develop the liquid oral polio vaccine and massively administer it to the populations of Africa and Asia, despite the near absence of any cases of “wild polio.” According to one of the partners in the Gates polio initiative, from Rotary International,
“Gates personally drove the development of a new polio vaccine that is now in the final stages of testing. When the idea was put forward, about the time of the last case of polio to happen in India, many were thinking the vaccine would play no important role in eradication, but Gates insisted.”
When someone asked him, why polio, which had all but vanished worldwide, Gates replied, “Polio is a terrible disease.”
That reply seems curious, as there are far more pervasive deadly diseases out there including malaria or chronic diarrhoea due to unsafe water, and poor sanitation across Africa that causes death by dehydration, poor absorption of nutrients or infectious complications. I would argue that both those are also “terrible.”
In 2016 chronic diarrhoea was listed by the WHO as the second leading cause of death in children below five worldwide. In Africa it was cause of almost 653,000 deaths, yet Mr. Gates and friends seem to be interested in other things.
The insistence of Gates on pushing massive vaccination of a new oral polio vaccine his foundation backed at a time when polio even in poor countries of Asia and Africa is virtually non-existent, should ring alarm bells loudly. If his goal is to help more African children lead healthy lives, simple water treatment projects would save far more lives.
Or is there something in the polio vaccine we are not being told of? Is there aluminum as adjuvant that is documented to be a central nervous system paralytic? Or other toxins?
The Gates Foundation spent almost $ 4 billion to develop and administer the oral polio vaccine throughout the poorest countries in the world as of 2018. This despite that WHO stated that the cases of polio in Pakistan and Afghanistan went from about 350,000 per year to 33 in 2018. There hasn’t been a case in the Americas or Western Europe since before the Gates polio project was launched years ago.
Define it away?
Here it gets into some very suspicious linguistic games on the part of WHO, Gates and company. They are trying to cover their deeds by claiming that most of the polio cases are actually something they decided to call acute flaccid paralysis (AFP). That is a debilitating condition with a clinical picture virtually identical to polio. But it keeps the “polio” numbers down. According to the US CDC, there were over 31,500 documented cases of acute flaccid paralysis from just 18 countries in 2017. This is in addition to what they call vaccine-associated polio paralysis (VAPP). Yet from the point of clinical symptoms, vaccine-derived polio, wild polio and acute flaccid paralysis are identical, as is acute flaccid myelitis (AFM), a subtype of AFP. With this proliferation of serious medical-sounding names to describe what produces the same medical symptoms, we have huge grounds for manipulation.
A paper written by Neetu Vashishi and Jacob Puliyel published in the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics in 2012 wrote about the Gates-CDC-WHO mass oral polio vaccine effort there:
“… while India has been polio-free for a year, there has been a huge increase in non-polio acute flaccid paralysis (NPAFP). In 2011, there were an extra 47,500 new cases of NPAFP. Clinically indistinguishable from polio paralysis but twice as deadly, the incidence of NPAFP was directly proportional to doses of oral polio received. Though this data was collected within the polio surveillance system, it was not investigated…”
The 1950s
Defining away cases of poliomyelitis or Infantile Paralysis as it was called during the epidemic in the USA after World War II, went back to the 1950s, and to since-suppressed deadly scandals involving the first purported polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk. Regarded today as a medical hero, the truth of Salk was anything but heroic.
The upsurge in cases of what were then labelled poliomyelitis or infantile paralysis in the United States began to literally explode around 1946. Relevant to note is that a highly dangerous, cumulative toxin, a now-banned insecticide known as DDT, was being promoted by the US government as a “safe” control of mosquitoes and flies said to be the “carriers” of polio virus. What has since been all but erased from the government record is the precise match of the number of cases of children with symptoms of acute polio with the degree of acute DDT spraying, and the equally precise mirrored decline of human polio cases from the late 1940s into the 1950s, after a sharp decline in DDT use. In 1953, Connecticut physician, Morton S. Biskind argued in public that, “the most obvious explanation for the polio epidemic: central nervous system diseases… such as polio are actually the physiological and symptomatic manifestations of the ongoing government- and industry-sponsored inundation of the world’s populace with central nervous system poisons.”
The Salk polio vaccine was first deployed in 1955, that is two years after the dramatic decline in registered polio cases. That fact was conveniently forgotten as the narrative was promoted that the new vaccine alone was eradicating the feared polio.
Serious evidence was presented by doctors and others to the US Congress that there was a clear connection between the summer polio epidemics to summer-used heavy metal pesticides such as DDT. They were ignored. The promotion of DDT as a harmless insecticide was so pervasive that kids followed behind trucks spraying the streets and swimming pools were sprayed with DDT, believing it harmless.
Highly emotional advertising campaigns proclaimed that deadly polio was mysteriously transmitted by insects and that DDT would protect. Farmers were told to repeatedly spray their dairy cows with DDT to ward off the dangerous insects. DDT thus contaminated the milk supply. Use of DDT exploded by the end of the 1940s across the USA. As one person described it,
“Concerned parents went further to protect their children. They feared the invisible virus as if it were hunting their children. They turned their homes into sterile zones by constantly spraying insecticides and washing down the walls with disinfectants.”
That sounds familiar.
Salk and Rockefeller
The vaccine research of Jonas Salk as well as of his rival, Albert Sabin, was funded by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, later known as the March of Dimes. Salk convinced the US health authorities in 1954 that his polio vaccine contained only inactive virus (IPV), and was absolutely safe. He was able to convince the regulatory authorities that the “expensive and difficult procedures which had been suggested for the detection of possible residual live virus” in his vaccine should be dispensed with. Field trials of the Salk vaccine in 1954 were exposed by the Journal of the American Statistical Association: “…59 per cent of the trial was worthless because of the lack of adequate controls…” That report was ignored by the US Department of Health and the National Foundation proclaimed the Salk vaccine ready to mass distribute in spring of 1955.
Already in 1955 alarming results from the Salk vaccine had emerged. His vaccine, manufactured by Cutter Laboratories, was administered to over four hundred thousand people, mostly school children. Within days, reports of paralysis began surfacing. Within a month, the mass vaccination program against polio had to be suspended. In June of 1956, polio cases began to increase sharply in Chicago in children who had received the Salk vaccine. The National Foundation sent an urgent letter to its members urging them to, “give reassurance that the present Salk vaccine is safe and effective to patients, parents and others in your community who still needlessly doubt it…”
Salk’s vaccine had caused seventy thousand (70,000) cases of muscle weakness, one hundred and sixty-four (164) cases of severe paralysis and ten deaths. Three fourths of the victims remained permanently paralyzed. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare stepped down and the director of the NIH resigned. The Cutter incident was quickly downplayed by the Government and vaccinations resumed after 21 days pause, using vaccines from Wyeth Labs. Those too produced cases of paralysis.
Between 1923 and 1953, before the Salk vaccine’s introduction, the polio death rate in the US had declined on its own by 47 percent; England had observed a similar pattern.
Following the use of Salk’s vaccine between 1955 and 1963, cases of polio in the US increased—by 50 percent from 1957 to 1958, and by 80 percent between 1958 and 1959. This was concealed by a US Government change in defining polio, much as the WHO and CDC do today in Africa. Diseases that had previously been grouped together under the umbrella of “polio” began to be reported as separate diseases. One of these was aseptic or viral meningitis, an infectious disease that is difficult to distinguish from poliovirus, or transverse myelitis—a rare spinal cord inflammation, or the Guillain-Barré syndrome. Were all these a result of widespread toxins used in the vaccine? The Government and vaccine industry was not interested in knowing or telling.
Finally in 1963 the US Government replaced Salk’s IPV vaccine with an attenuated oral polio vaccine (OPV) developed by Albert Sabin. As a live virus vaccine, it, too, was and is capable of giving its recipients polio or polio symptoms. Salk testified before a Senate subcommittee in 1977 that the Sabin oral polio vaccine had caused most of the polio cases in the US since the early 1960s.
Rockefeller eugenics?
The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which funded both Salk and his rival Sabin in development of polio vaccines in the 1950’s, was run by two doctors from the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research– Dr. Henry Kumm, who had spent 23 years with the Rockefeller Institute, and Dr. Thomas Rivers.
Henry Kumm went over to the National Foundation in 1951 at the peak of the polio epidemic. In May 1953, Kumm became Director of Polio Research at NFIP. Notably, during World War II, Kumm had served as civilian consultant to the Surgeon General of the US Army in Italy, directing field studies for the use of DDT against malarial mosquitoes.
Thomas Rivers was from 1922 head of the infectious disease ward at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, becoming the institute’s director in 1937. As chairman of committees on research and vaccine advisory for the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, he oversaw the clinical trials of Jonas Salk’s vaccine by Dr Kumm’s group. It could be said that the National Foundation was a mask for a massive Rockefeller polio vaccine project.
Polio researcher David Oshisky stated,
“In truth, polio was never the raging epidemic portrayed in the media, not even at its height in the 1940s and 1950s. Ten times as many children would die in accidents in those years, and three times as many would die of cancer. Polio’s special status was due, in large part, to the efforts of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, better known as the March of Dimes, which employed the latest techniques in advertising, fund raising and motivational research to turn a horrific but relatively uncommon disease in to the most feared affliction of its time. The genius of the National Polio Foundation lay in its ability to single out polio for special attention, making it seem more ominous than other diseases.”
That National Foundation was run by Rockefeller doctors. This is very much what the Gates Foundation is doing with its turbo-charged oral polio vaccine in Africa where polio had almost vanished before the mass vaccine campaign of WHO and Gates.
Here the bond of dedication to eugenics and to dangerous vaccines seems to unite both the Rockefellers and Bill Gates, who in many ways is merely the heir and continuation of the deadly eugenics work of the Rockefellers. All this should give pause before regarding the pronouncements of Bill Gates on coronavirus and his favored vaccines as the scientific good truth.
************
F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
Featured image is from NEO


thelibertybeacon--2020-10-01--Strong Voices in the Land: Piers Corbyn

Strong Voices in the Land: Piers Corbyn

We are now running a new regular feature : Strong Voices in the Land .
In it we bring to your attention Freedom Fighters and Truth Warriors whose strong voices should be heard .
The least we can do here at UKReloaded is help promote the valuable work of these people of good will .
Here we feature Piers Corbyn – and a statement from his professional website WeatherAction.net “ Covid19-Alarm has replaced ClimateChange-Alarm as the main propaganda tool of the megaRich and Mega Corporations for their declared NewNormal /NewWorldOrder world plunder and control scheming to end democracy and destroy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when a LongRange Weather forecasting company actively discusses such political things ; but make no mistake the totalitarian nature of this NewNormal / NewWorldOrder project is THE end of Science and THE end of democracy .
Both ClimateChange propaganda and CV19 contagion propaganda rely on falsification of data and negation of evidence-based science .
THAT REQUIRES the negation of democracy because it is through democratic debate based on evidence of the real world that science of the real world is advanced .
Most academic institutions and official science and technology bodies are now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Nazi Germany – where ‘ contagion ’ was the key to coercion – and the Stalinist USSR , the “ science ” they propagate is for the political spectacle not the understanding of the living and physical universe.
” Below you will find a couple of videos of Piers ’ recent speeches and here are some useful links through which you can find out more about this Freedom Fighter Piers ’ channel on Brand New Tube ( better than YouTube ) this article was first published on UK Reloaded The Liberty Beacon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exponential rate , and for this we are grateful and excited !
But we must also be practical .
For 7 years we have not asked for any donations , and have built this project with our own funds as we grew .
We are now experiencing ever increasing growing pains due to the large number of websites and projects we represent .
So we have just installed donation buttons on our websites and ask that you consider this when you visit them .
Nothing is too small .
We thank you for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( TLB ) Comment Policy : As a privately owned web site , we reserve the right to remove comments that contain spam , advertising , vulgarity , threats of violence , racism , or personal/abusive attacks on other users .
This also applies to trolling , the use of more than one alias , or just intentional mischief .
Enforcement of this policy is at the discretion of this websites administrators .
Repeat offenders may be blocked or permanently banned without prior warning .
Disclaimer : TLB websites contain copyrighted material the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ specifically authorized by the copyright owner .
We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of “ fair use ” in an effort to advance a better understanding of political , health , economic and social issues .
The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes .
If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than “ fair use ” you must request permission from the copyright owner .

We are now running a new regular feature: Strong Voices in the Land.
In it we bring to your attention Freedom Fighters and Truth Warriors whose strong voices should be heard. The least we can do here at UKReloaded is help promote the valuable work of these people of good will.
Here we feature Piers Corbyn – and a statement from his professional website WeatherAction.net
“Covid19-Alarm has replaced ClimateChange-Alarm as the main propaganda tool of the megaRich and Mega Corporations for their declared NewNormal /NewWorldOrder world plunder and control scheming to end democracy and destroy Rights. These are strange times indeed when a LongRange Weather forecasting company actively discusses such political things; but make no mistake the totalitarian nature of this NewNormal / NewWorldOrder project is THE end of Science and THE end of democracy. Both ClimateChange propaganda and CV19 contagion propaganda rely on falsification of data and negation of evidence-based science. THAT REQUIRES the negation of democracy because it is through democratic debate based on evidence of the real world that science of the real world is advanced. Most academic institutions and official science and technology bodies are now prisoners of the propaganda machine and as in Nazi Germany – where ‘contagion’ was the key to coercion – and the Stalinist USSR, the “science” they propagate is for the political spectacle not the understanding of the living and physical universe.”
Below you will find a couple of videos of Piers’ recent speeches and here are some useful links through which you can find out more about this Freedom Fighter
Piers’ channel on Brand New Tube (better than YouTube)
Piers’ Facebook page
Piers’ Website WeatherAction.com
Related website StopTheNewNormal.net
this article was first published on UK Reloaded
••••
The Liberty Beacon Project is now expanding at a near exponential rate, and for this we are grateful and excited! But we must also be practical. For 7 years we have not asked for any donations, and have built this project with our own funds as we grew. We are now experiencing ever increasing growing pains due to the large number of websites and projects we represent. So we have just installed donation buttons on our websites and ask that you consider this when you visit them. Nothing is too small. We thank you for all your support and your considerations … (TLB)
••••
Comment Policy: As a privately owned web site, we reserve the right to remove comments that contain spam, advertising, vulgarity, threats of violence, racism, or personal/abusive attacks on other users. This also applies to trolling, the use of more than one alias, or just intentional mischief. Enforcement of this policy is at the discretion of this websites administrators. Repeat offenders may be blocked or permanently banned without prior warning.
••••
Disclaimer: TLB websites contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of “fair use” in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, health, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than “fair use” you must request permission from the copyright owner.
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Disclaimer: The information and opinions shared are for informational purposes only including, but not limited to, text, graphics, images and other material are not intended as medical advice or instruction. Nothing mentioned is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.


thelibertybeacon--2020-10-02--The Surreal US Case Against Assange – Summing It All Up

Following the Julian Assange case as it has progressed through its various stages , from the original Swedish allegations right up to and including the extradition hearing , which is currently underway in the Central Criminal Court in London , has been a troubling and very strange experience .
The U.S. government has failed to present a coherent case .
Conscious that the British authorities should in theory refuse to extradite Assange if the case against him were shown to be politically motivated and/or related to Assange ’ s legitimate work as a journalist , the U.S. government has struggled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is not too obviously politically motivated or related to Assange ’ s legitimate work as a journalist .
This explains the strange succession of ONE original and TWO superseding indictments .
The U.S. government ’ s first indictment was based on what was a supposedly simple allegation of computer interference , supposedly coordinated in some sort of conspiracy between Assange and Chelsea Manning .
This was obviously done in an attempt to dispel the idea that the request for Assange ’ s extradition was politically motivated or was related to Assange ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , lawyers in the United States had no difficulty pointing out the “ inchoate facts ” of the alleged conspiracy between Assange and Manning , whilst both lawyers and journalists in the United States and elsewhere pointed out that the facts in the indictment in fact bore all the hallmarks of action by a journalist to protect a source .
The result was that the U.S. government replaced its indictment with a first superseding indictment , which this time was founded largely on the 1917 Espionage Act , and was therefore closer to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Assange was being brought .
However , that made the case look altogether too obviously politically motivated , so it has in turn been replaced by a second superseding indictment , presented to the court and the defence team virtually on the eve of the trial , which has sought to veer back towards strictly criminal allegations , this time of involvement in computer hacking .
More Problems for Another Indictment The allegations in the second superseding indictment have , however , faced major difficulties , in that they do not seem to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even be actual crimes .
Also , they rely heavily on the evidence of a known fraudster , whose “ evidence ” is inherently unreliable .
The U.S. government has failed to make clear whether the additional allegations in the second superseding indictment are intended to constitute a separate standalone case .
Initially , they appeared to deny that they did ; then they hinted that they might do ; now , however , they seem to be acting as if they don ’ t .
As if that were not confusing enough @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lawyers have floated confusing and contradictory theories about whether or not the British authorities can extradite Assange even if the case against him is politically motivated , and even if it is related to his journalistic activities .
Initially , they seemed to be arguing that — contrary to all British precedent and the actual text of the extradition treaty between the U.S. and Britain — Britain can in fact extradite Assange to the U.S. on a politically motivated charge , because the enabling Act which the British Parliament passed , which made @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Britain a part of British law , is silent on whether or not individuals can be extradited to the U.S. on a politically motivated charge .
This argument , of course , came close to conceding that the case against Assange is politically motivated after all .
Central Criminal Court in London , commonly known as Old Bailey , 2004 .
( Nevilley , Wikimedia Commons ) This threadbare argument , at least for the moment , seems to have been abandoned .
At least , nothing has been heard of it throughout @ @ @ @ @ @ @ U.S. government and its British lawyers have argued , in the face of the incredulity of a string of expert and factual witnesses , that the case is not politically motivated after all .
The same inconsistencies have beset the U.S. government ’ s arguments as to whether or not Assange is being charged under the Espionage Act for activities related to his work as a journalist .
Initially the U.S. government ’ s position was that he was not .
This was based on some theory — never satisfactorily explained or articulated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not a journalist , even though he is charged with doing things that journalists do .
Faced by a barrage of expert witnesses who pointed out that the charges brought against Assange under the Espionage Act do in fact relate to work journalists do , the U.S. government midway through the hearing reversed course .
Now it says that the charges against Assange not only do relate to his work as a journalist , but that they can be brought against any journalist who does the things Assange is being charged with having @ @ @ @ @ @ @ argued that The New York Times would have been successfully prosecuted under the Espionage Act for publishing the Pentagon Papers , because that was an action essentially identical to the ones for which Assange is being charged .
The implications for journalists of this astonishing reversal are truly shocking .
It is staggering that in the media it has attracted no attention .
The U.S. government has shown the same lack of coherence in its response to the defence ’ s impressive lineup of expert witnesses .
The conventional way of responding to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to state a contrary view .
On the critical issues of U.S. law , especially the protections provided to journalists by the First Amendment to the Constitution , as well as on the politics in the U.S. behind the Assange prosecution , the U.S. government has however done no such thing .
Presumably , it has found it difficult or impossible to find experts who can be relied upon credibly to state a contrary view .
Instead , armed only with affidavits from U.S. Justice Department officials , who are of course not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are part of the U.S. government ’ s legal team , the U.S. government ’ s British lawyers have been left to argue that the defence ’ s experts are not really experts at all — an impossible argument to make convincingly in my opinion — and to debate with the experts points of U.S. politics and U.S. law — including difficult points of U.S. constitutional and case law — about which the experts are by definition far more knowledgeable than the British lawyers .
The result , inevitably , has been a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have been repeatedly caught out by the experts making basic errors of fact and interpretation about the points which they have sought to argue .
Unsurprisingly , the lawyers have attempted to make up for this by trying to intimidate and denigrate the experts , in a way that has only highlighted their own lack of expertise in the relevant areas by comparison with that of the experts .
Given the collapse into incoherence of the U.S. government ’ s case , it is unsurprising that the U.S. government ’ s British lawyers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Judge against hearing closing arguments .
Given the constant shifts and reversals in the U.S. government ’ s position , preparing and presenting a closing argument to the court which would be internally consistent and credible must be fast becoming a nightmare .
If closing arguments do take place , as I still expect , it will be interesting to see which of the many conflicting arguments and theories they have made the U.S. government ’ s lawyers finally run with .
On its face , the U.S. government ’ s case ought @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was even a point in the hearing where one of the U.S. government ’ s British lawyers apparently admitted to the judge that the reason for the second superseding indictment was that the first superseding indictment was “ failing.
” If so , then given that the charges being prosecuted against Assange are still basically those set out in the first superseding indictment , the case against Assange ought to be dismissed , and the U.S. government ’ s request for his extradition ought to be refused .
It remains to be seen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ However , that brings me to the single most important fact , and the underlying truth , about this extraordinary case .
It is very easy when following the intricacies of such a complex legal process to lose sight of what this case is really about .
Ultimately the U.S. government is not pursuing Julian Assange because he helped Chelsea Manning take certain steps with a computer to conceal her identity , or because he had some historic contacts with hackers , or because he became involved in some activities in Iceland , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a fraudster ( and FBI informant ) .
Nor is it because Assange received and published classified material .
In the U.S. the receipt and publication by the news media of classified material has grown to almost industrial levels .
It is because Assange , to a greater extent than any other journalist since the end of the war in Vietnam , has exposed the darkest and most terrible secrets of the U.S. government .
The case against Assange has its origin in the calamitous “ War on Terror ” launched by the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the 9/11 attacks .
That “ war ” provided the cover for a series of violent military aggressions , primarily in the Middle East , by the U.S. and its closest allies , first and foremost Britain but also including other countries such as Saudi Arabia and France .
The result has been a series of wars in a succession of Middle East countries — Afghanistan , Iraq , Libya , Syria and Yemen— fought by the U.S. and its allies and proxies , which have caused the devastation of whole societies , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In the process the U.S. has become drawn increasingly into practices which it once condemned , or at least said it condemned .
These include the “ extrajudicial killing ” ( i.e .
murder ) of people — who have included children and U.S. citizens — by drone strikes , a practice which has now become routine ; the kidnapping of individuals and their detention without trial in places like Guantanamo , a practice which , despite unconvincing protestations that “ extraordinary rendition ” no longer happens , almost certainly continues ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one time referred to as “ enhanced interrogation techniques , ” which almost certainly still continues , and indeed appears to have become normalized .
( ER : don ’ t you just love the dignified language ! )
All of this activity straightforwardly violates international ( and domestic U.S. ) law , including war crimes law and human rights law , and does so moreover in fundamental ways .
It also requires , in order to implement the policies that result in these unlawful acts , in the creation of a vast @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a sort that is ultimately incompatible with a democratic society .
Inevitably its activities , which have become routinely unlawful , are becoming unlawful within the territory of the United States , as well as outside it .
This manifests itself in all sorts of ways , for example through the vast , indiscriminate and illegal bulk-surveillance program exposed by the whistleblower Edward Snowden , and by the systemic FISA surveillance abuse exposed over the course of the Russiagate “ scandal.
” The extent to which the very existence of the national security @ @ @ @ @ @ @ illegal activities and to achieve its foreign policy goals , has become incompatible with a democratic society , is shown by one of the most alarming of recent developments , both in Britain and in the United States .
This is the growing complicity of much of the media in concealing its illegal activities .
Obviously , without that complicity , these activities would be impossible , as would the serial violations of international law , including war crimes law and human rights , which the United States and some of its allies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ explains the extreme reaction to Julian Assange , and the determined attempts to destroy him , and to pulp his reputation .
Julian Assange and his organization WikiLeaks , have done those things which the U.S. government and its national security apparatus most fear , and have worked hardest to prevent , by exposing the terrible reality of much of what the U.S. government now routinely does , and is determined to conceal , and what much of the media is helping the U.S. government to conceal .
Thus , in a series @ @ @ @ @ @ @ WikiLeaks have exposed in the so-called embassy cables the extraordinarily manipulative conduct of U.S. foreign policy ; in the Vault 7 disclosures the instruments the CIA uses in order to — as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said , “ lie ” and “ cheat ” — and , most disturbingly , in collaboration with Chelsea Manning , the rampant war crimes and egregious human rights abuses carried out by the U.S. military during the illegal war and occupation of Iraq .
This is an extraordinary record for a journalist , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which was only set up in 2006 .
Not surprisingly , the result has been that the pursuit of Assange by the U.S. government has been relentless , whilst the media , much of which has been complicit in covering up its crimes , has preferred to look the other way .
It is this underlying reality which gives the whole case currently unfolding in London ’ s Central Criminal Court its surreal quality .
That the true purpose of the U.S. government ’ s relentless pursuit of Assange is to prevent him @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and to punish him for exposing those of its crimes which he did expose , if only so as to deter others from doing the same thing , is perfectly obvious to any unbiased and realistic observer .
However , the hearing in London is being conducted as if this were not the case .
Thus , the extraordinary zigzags in the U.S. government ’ s rationale for bringing the case , as it can not admit the true reason why the case has been actually brought .
Thus , also the U.S. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hearing to prevent evidence being produced of its crimes , which Assange exposed .
The U.S. government has strenuously opposed all attempts to introduce as evidence the appalling “ Collateral Murder ” video , which shows the deliberate murder of civilians in Iraq by members of the U.S. military .
It has also strenuously opposed the introduction of evidence from a defence witness about his own torture .
This despite the fact that in both cases , the fact of the U.S. crimes is scarcely disputed , and has in fact been all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ paradoxical and bizarre situation whereby the U.S. authorities try to cobble together a case against Assange based on a confusing medley of discordant and conflicting claims and facts , whilst failing to prosecute or hold to account those who were responsible for the very serious crimes which he has exposed .
In fact , as the U.S. government ’ s case has unraveled , the argument has become increasingly confined to the discrete issue of whether — by exposing the U.S. government ’ s crimes —Assange “ irresponsibly ” put the safety of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ As it happens , the evidence is clearly that he did not .
Over the course of the hearing , the court has heard of Assange ’ s many and serious attempts to conceal the identities of these informants , and of the reckless and even possibly malicious actions of certain others who actually exposed them .
The court has also been told of the absence of any evidence that any one of these informants has in fact been harmed by any disclosure by WikiLeaks or Assange .
Moreover , an expert witness @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a journalist of the identities of such informants would not under U.S. law be a crime anyway .
In response , the U.S. government ’ s lawyers have relied heavily , not on the evidence of any actual witness , but on passages in a book by two Guardian journalists who are known to be hostile to Assange , and who — by publishing a password — seem to have done more to compromise the identities of the informants than Assange ever did .
Neither of these journalists has been called to give @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their book .
Doing so would , of course , have exposed them to cross-examination by the defence about the truth of the book ’ s contents .
Given the weight the U.S. government is apparently placing on the book , I find it astonishing that they were not called .
The surreal quality of the U.S. government ’ s treatment of this issue is shown by the fact that when an actual witness — the German journalist John Goetz — did in fact come forward and offer to give evidence on oath @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — refuting an allegation in the book that Assange supposedly made comments at a dinner , which Goetz attended , that showed a reckless disregard for the safety of the informants — the U.S. government ’ s lawyers strenuously objected , and were able to get the judge to exclude this evidence .
However , it is the staggering disproportion between the scale of the crimes Assange has exposed , and the crimes of which he is accused — if they are even crimes , and of which he anyway appears to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Assange and WikiLeaks have exposed rampant war crimes and human rights abuses over the course of illegal wars waged by the U.S. government and its allies .
The death toll from these wars runs at the very least into the tens of thousands , and more plausibly into the hundreds of thousands or even millions .
By contrast , over the course of the entire hearing , no evidence whatsoever has been produced that , as a result of any of Assange ’ s actions , anyone has come to any actual @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who is in the dock , facing demands for his extradition to the United States , where a 175-year sentence may await him , whilst the persons responsible for the colossal crimes he has exposed , not only walk free , but are amongst those who are trying to jail him .
The point was made forcefully during the hearing by one of the defence ’ s most powerful witnesses , Daniel Ellsberg .
It was also made forcefully to Consortium News by one of its readers , who has correctly pointed out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ clearly defined as war crimes by the Nuremberg Tribunal , whose decisions are universally accepted as forming the bedrock of international war crimes law .
The Nuremberg Tribunal , moreover , made it clear that there is not only a positive duty to refuse to participate in such crimes , even when ordered to do so , but that no sanctions should ever been imposed for exposing such crimes when they occur .
In other words , it is Assange and his sources , first and foremost Chelsea Manning , who are the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nuremberg Principles , and including in the case which is currently underway , whilst it is those who persecute them , including by bringing the current case against Assange , who are international law ’ s violators .
This is the single most important fact about this case , and it explains everything about it .
Assange and Manning have paid an enormous price for their defence of international law , and for the principles of basic human decency and humanity .
Manning was recently held in long spells of solitary detention , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the U.S. authorities , for no reason other than that she has refused to testify against Assange .
Assange has been subjected to what various UN agencies have characterized as long periods of arbitrary detention and psychological torture .
He continues to be denied bail , despite his known health problems , and is separated from his family .
He continues to have difficulties consulting privately with his lawyers , and has been exposed to the indignity — qualified in other cases by the European Court for Human Rights as a human rights @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rooms confined to a glass box or cage .
John Pilger has described vividly and in great detail , including to Consortium News , the inhuman conditions to which Assange is daily exposed to .
That these amount to human rights violations ought not to require discussion or explanation .
That these human rights violations breach a host of international conventions to which Britain is a signatory , including against torture and arbitrary detention , in respect of the right to a fair trial , in respect of the right to privacy and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the right to a family life , also ought not to require discussion or explanation .
Recently , there has been an outcry in Britain because legislation the British government is proposing , which would allow it to modify unilaterally the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement it agreed last year with the European Union , breaches international law .
Without in any way disputing the importance of this issue , which may have important consequences for peace in Ireland , I find the angry protestations of some British journalists and politicians , that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unreal .
If they want examples of Britain violating international law , they need look no further than the facts of Assange ’ s case .
They might also benefit from looking at what has been said over the course of the ongoing hearing in the Central Criminal Court .
Despite all the difficulties , there is however no reason to give up hope .
The extraordinary zigzags the U.S. government has been forced to make as it tries and fails to put a coherent and convincing case against Julian Assange together show @ @ @ @ @ @ @ many flaws , remains an important defence .
I am aware of the many criticisms which have been made of Vanessa Baraitser , the judge who is hearing Assange ’ s case .
I don ’ t disagree with any of them .
However , I do get the impression that Baraitser ’ s patience has been sorely tried by the U.S. government ’ s repeated and dizzying changes of position .
I also get the impression that she was particularly annoyed when the U.S. government , on the virtual eve of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the defence its second superseding indictment , which in effect made a nonsense of the first .
That may explain why the U.S. government ’ s British lawyers have largely conducted the case as if the second superseding indictment did not exist , basing their arguments mostly on what the first superseding indictment says , though perhaps unsurprisingly , and to the bafflement of the experts , they are now increasingly making arguments which have no basis in any indictment .
Moreover , and perhaps more importantly , Baraitser has rejected the U.S. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ en masse the evidence of defence witnesses , even if she has imposed a 30-minute guillotine on their examination in chief ( direct examination ) by defence lawyers .
In summary , and in my opinion , there is still a chance , however small , that Baraitser will decide the case in Assange ’ s favour .
If she does not do so , then I would have thought , based on what has happened over the course of the hearing , that Assange will have good prospects on appeal .
More @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the court , where the outcome remains very much in doubt , and where the prospects must be considered problematic to say the least , is what has been happening outside .
My wife , who attended one of the hearings last week , saw placards held up by some of Assange ’ s supporters outside the court , which called on road users to honk their horns in support of Assange .
To her delighted astonishment , despite the media blackout which surrounds the case , and despite the long campaign of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ subjected , an extraordinarily high proportion of road users ( more than a quarter ) did so .
That reinforces my sense that the tide of opinion , at least in Britain , is shifting .
The battle is far from over , and can still be won .

ALEXANDER MERCOURIS
Following the Julian Assange case as it has progressed through its various stages, from the original Swedish allegations right up to and including the extradition hearing, which is currently underway in the Central Criminal Court in London, has been a troubling and very strange experience.
The U.S. government has failed to present a coherent case.
Conscious that the British authorities should in theory refuse to extradite Assange if the case against him were shown to be politically motivated and/or related to Assange’s legitimate work as a journalist, the U.S. government has struggled to present a case against Assange which is not too obviously politically motivated or related to Assange’s legitimate work as a journalist.
This explains the strange succession of ONE original and TWO superseding indictments.
The U.S. government’s first indictment was based on what was a supposedly simple allegation of computer interference, supposedly coordinated in some sort of conspiracy between Assange and Chelsea Manning.
This was obviously done in an attempt to dispel the idea that the request for Assange’s extradition was politically motivated or was related to Assange’s legitimate work as a journalist.
However, lawyers in the United States had no difficulty pointing out the “inchoate facts” of the alleged conspiracy between Assange and Manning, whilst both lawyers and journalists in the United States and elsewhere pointed out that the facts in the indictment in fact bore all the hallmarks of action by a journalist to protect a source.
The result was that the U.S. government replaced its indictment with a first superseding indictment, which this time was founded largely on the 1917 Espionage Act, and was therefore closer to the real reasons why the case against Assange was being brought.
However, that made the case look altogether too obviously politically motivated, so it has in turn been replaced by a second superseding indictment, presented to the court and the defence team virtually on the eve of the trial, which has sought to veer back towards strictly criminal allegations, this time of involvement in computer hacking.
More Problems for Another Indictment
The allegations in the second superseding indictment have, however, faced major difficulties, in that they do not seem to concern the United States and may not even be actual crimes. Also, they rely heavily on the evidence of a known fraudster, whose “evidence” is inherently unreliable.
The U.S. government has failed to make clear whether the additional allegations in the second superseding indictment are intended to constitute a separate standalone case. Initially, they appeared to deny that they did; then they hinted that they might do; now, however, they seem to be acting as if they don’t.
As if that were not confusing enough, the U.S. government and its British lawyers have floated confusing and contradictory theories about whether or not the British authorities can extradite Assange even if the case against him is politically motivated, and even if it is related to his journalistic activities.
Initially, they seemed to be arguing that — contrary to all British precedent and the actual text of the extradition treaty between the U.S. and Britain — Britain can in fact extradite Assange to the U.S. on a politically motivated charge, because the enabling Act which the British Parliament passed, which made the extradition treaty between the U.S. and Britain a part of British law, is silent on whether or not individuals can be extradited to the U.S. on a politically motivated charge.
This argument, of course, came close to conceding that the case against Assange is politically motivated after all.
Central Criminal Court in London, commonly known as Old Bailey, 2004. (Nevilley, Wikimedia Commons)
This threadbare argument, at least for the moment, seems to have been abandoned. At least, nothing has been heard of it throughout the current hearing. Instead, the U.S. government and its British lawyers have argued, in the face of the incredulity of a string of expert and factual witnesses, that the case is not politically motivated after all.
The same inconsistencies have beset the U.S. government’s arguments as to whether or not Assange is being charged under the Espionage Act for activities related to his work as a journalist.
Initially the U.S. government’s position was that he was not. This was based on some theory — never satisfactorily explained or articulated — that Assange in some way is not a journalist, even though he is charged with doing things that journalists do.
Faced by a barrage of expert witnesses who pointed out that the charges brought against Assange under the Espionage Act do in fact relate to work journalists do, the U.S. government midway through the hearing reversed course.
Now it says that the charges against Assange not only do relate to his work as a journalist, but that they can be brought against any journalist who does the things Assange is being charged with having done. The U.S. government has even argued that The New York Times would have been successfully prosecuted under the Espionage Act for publishing the Pentagon Papers, because that was an action essentially identical to the ones for which Assange is being charged.
The implications for journalists of this astonishing reversal are truly shocking. It is staggering that in the media it has attracted no attention.
Trouble with Witnesses
The U.S. government has shown the same lack of coherence in its response to the defence’s impressive lineup of expert witnesses.
The conventional way of responding to an expert is to call another expert to state a contrary view. On the critical issues of U.S. law, especially the protections provided to journalists by the First Amendment to the Constitution, as well as on the politics in the U.S. behind the Assange prosecution, the U.S. government has however done no such thing. Presumably, it has found it difficult or impossible to find experts who can be relied upon credibly to state a contrary view.
Instead, armed only with affidavits from U.S. Justice Department officials, who are of course not impartial experts at all, but who are part of the U.S. government’s legal team, the U.S. government’s British lawyers have been left to argue that the defence’s experts are not really experts at all — an impossible argument to make convincingly in my opinion — and to debate with the experts points of U.S. politics and U.S. law — including difficult points of U.S. constitutional and case law — about which the experts are by definition far more knowledgeable than the British lawyers.
The result, inevitably, has been a series of humiliations, as the lawyers have been repeatedly caught out by the experts making basic errors of fact and interpretation about the points which they have sought to argue.
Unsurprisingly, the lawyers have attempted to make up for this by trying to intimidate and denigrate the experts, in a way that has only highlighted their own lack of expertise in the relevant areas by comparison with that of the experts.
Trevor Timm, a defence witness and press-freedom advocate, in 2014. (YouTube)
Given the collapse into incoherence of the U.S. government’s case, it is unsurprising that the U.S. government’s British lawyers are now reportedly trying to persuade the Judge against hearing closing arguments.
Given the constant shifts and reversals in the U.S. government’s position, preparing and presenting a closing argument to the court which would be internally consistent and credible must be fast becoming a nightmare. If closing arguments do take place, as I still expect, it will be interesting to see which of the many conflicting arguments and theories they have made the U.S. government’s lawyers finally run with.
On its face, the U.S. government’s case ought to be close to collapse. There was even a point in the hearing where one of the U.S. government’s British lawyers apparently admitted to the judge that the reason for the second superseding indictment was that the first superseding indictment was “failing.”
If so, then given that the charges being prosecuted against Assange are still basically those set out in the first superseding indictment, the case against Assange ought to be dismissed, and the U.S. government’s request for his extradition ought to be refused.
The Underlying Truth
It remains to be seen whether that is what actually happens. However, that brings me to the single most important fact, and the underlying truth, about this extraordinary case.
It is very easy when following the intricacies of such a complex legal process to lose sight of what this case is really about.
Ultimately the U.S. government is not pursuing Julian Assange because he helped Chelsea Manning take certain steps with a computer to conceal her identity, or because he had some historic contacts with hackers, or because he became involved in some activities in Iceland, which caused him to fall foul of a fraudster (and FBI informant).
Nor is it because Assange received and published classified material. In the U.S. the receipt and publication by the news media of classified material has grown to almost industrial levels.
It is because Assange, to a greater extent than any other journalist since the end of the war in Vietnam, has exposed the darkest and most terrible secrets of the U.S. government.
The case against Assange has its origin in the calamitous “War on Terror” launched by the Bush administration in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
That “war” provided the cover for a series of violent military aggressions, primarily in the Middle East, by the U.S. and its closest allies, first and foremost Britain but also including other countries such as Saudi Arabia and France.
The result has been a series of wars in a succession of Middle East countries — Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen— fought by the U.S. and its allies and proxies, which have caused the devastation of whole societies, and the death and dispersal of millions.
In the process the U.S. has become drawn increasingly into practices which it once condemned, or at least said it condemned. These include the “extrajudicial killing” (i.e. murder) of people — who have included children and U.S. citizens — by drone strikes, a practice which has now become routine; the kidnapping of individuals and their detention without trial in places like Guantanamo, a practice which, despite unconvincing protestations that “extraordinary rendition” no longer happens, almost certainly continues; and the practice of torture, at one time referred to as “enhanced interrogation techniques,” which almost certainly still continues, and indeed appears to have become normalized. (ER: don’t you just love the dignified language!)
All of this activity straightforwardly violates international (and domestic U.S.) law, including war crimes law and human rights law, and does so moreover in fundamental ways.
It also requires, in order to implement the policies that result in these unlawful acts, in the creation of a vast and ultimately unaccountable national security apparatus of a sort that is ultimately incompatible with a democratic society. Inevitably its activities, which have become routinely unlawful, are becoming unlawful within the territory of the United States, as well as outside it.
This manifests itself in all sorts of ways, for example through the vast, indiscriminate and illegal bulk-surveillance program exposed by the whistleblower Edward Snowden, and by the systemic FISA surveillance abuse exposed over the course of the Russiagate “scandal.”
The extent to which the very existence of the national security apparatus, required to implement various U.S. illegal activities and to achieve its foreign policy goals, has become incompatible with a democratic society, is shown by one of the most alarming of recent developments, both in Britain and in the United States.
This is the growing complicity of much of the media in concealing its illegal activities. Obviously, without that complicity, these activities would be impossible, as would the serial violations of international law, including war crimes law and human rights, which the United States and some of its allies now routinely engage in.
All this explains the extreme reaction to Julian Assange, and the determined attempts to destroy him, and to pulp his reputation.
Julian Assange and his organization WikiLeaks, have done those things which the U.S. government and its national security apparatus most fear, and have worked hardest to prevent, by exposing the terrible reality of much of what the U.S. government now routinely does, and is determined to conceal, and what much of the media is helping the U.S. government to conceal.
Thus, in a series of astonishing revelations, Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have exposed in the so-called embassy cables the extraordinarily manipulative conduct of U.S. foreign policy; in the Vault 7 disclosures the instruments the CIA uses in order to — as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said, “lie” and “cheat” — and, most disturbingly, in collaboration with Chelsea Manning, the rampant war crimes and egregious human rights abuses carried out by the U.S. military during the illegal war and occupation of Iraq.
This is an extraordinary record for a journalist, and for an organization, WikiLeaks, which was only set up in 2006.
Not surprisingly, the result has been that the pursuit of Assange by the U.S. government has been relentless, whilst the media, much of which has been complicit in covering up its crimes, has preferred to look the other way.
Hence, the Surreal Quality
It is this underlying reality which gives the whole case currently unfolding in London’s Central Criminal Court its surreal quality.
That the true purpose of the U.S. government’s relentless pursuit of Assange is to prevent him from exposing more of its crimes, and to punish him for exposing those of its crimes which he did expose, if only so as to deter others from doing the same thing, is perfectly obvious to any unbiased and realistic observer. However, the hearing in London is being conducted as if this were not the case.
Thus, the extraordinary zigzags in the U.S. government’s rationale for bringing the case, as it cannot admit the true reason why the case has been actually brought.
Thus, also the U.S. government’s strenuous efforts throughout the hearing to prevent evidence being produced of its crimes, which Assange exposed.
The U.S. government has strenuously opposed all attempts to introduce as evidence the appalling “Collateral Murder” video, which shows the deliberate murder of civilians in Iraq by members of the U.S. military. It has also strenuously opposed the introduction of evidence from a defence witness about his own torture. This despite the fact that in both cases, the fact of the U.S. crimes is scarcely disputed, and has in fact been all but admitted.
The result is the paradoxical and bizarre situation whereby the U.S. authorities try to cobble together a case against Assange based on a confusing medley of discordant and conflicting claims and facts, whilst failing to prosecute or hold to account those who were responsible for the very serious crimes which he has exposed.
In fact, as the U.S. government’s case has unraveled, the argument has become increasingly confined to the discrete issue of whether — by exposing the U.S. government’s crimes —Assange “irresponsibly” put the safety of various U.S. government informants at risk.
As it happens, the evidence is clearly that he did not. Over the course of the hearing, the court has heard of Assange’s many and serious attempts to conceal the identities of these informants, and of the reckless and even possibly malicious actions of certain others who actually exposed them.
The court has also been told of the absence of any evidence that any one of these informants has in fact been harmed by any disclosure by WikiLeaks or Assange. Moreover, an expert witness has argued convincingly that the disclosure by a journalist of the identities of such informants would not under U.S. law be a crime anyway.
In response, the U.S. government’s lawyers have relied heavily, not on the evidence of any actual witness, but on passages in a book by two Guardian journalists who are known to be hostile to Assange, and who — by publishing a password — seem to have done more to compromise the identities of the informants than Assange ever did.
Neither of these journalists has been called to give evidence on oath about the contents of their book. Doing so would, of course, have exposed them to cross-examination by the defence about the truth of the book’s contents. Given the weight the U.S. government is apparently placing on the book, I find it astonishing that they were not called.
The surreal quality of the U.S. government’s treatment of this issue is shown by the fact that when an actual witness — the German journalist John Goetz — did in fact come forward and offer to give evidence on oath about a specific allegation in the book — refuting an allegation in the book that Assange supposedly made comments at a dinner, which Goetz attended, that showed a reckless disregard for the safety of the informants — the U.S. government’s lawyers strenuously objected, and were able to get the judge to exclude this evidence.
However, it is the staggering disproportion between the scale of the crimes Assange has exposed, and the crimes of which he is accused — if they are even crimes, and of which he anyway appears to be innocent — which for me stands out.
Assange and WikiLeaks have exposed rampant war crimes and human rights abuses over the course of illegal wars waged by the U.S. government and its allies. The death toll from these wars runs at the very least into the tens of thousands, and more plausibly into the hundreds of thousands or even millions.
By contrast, over the course of the entire hearing, no evidence whatsoever has been produced that, as a result of any of Assange’s actions, anyone has come to any actual physical harm.
Yet it is Assange who is in the dock, facing demands for his extradition to the United States, where a 175-year sentence may await him, whilst the persons responsible for the colossal crimes he has exposed, not only walk free, but are amongst those who are trying to jail him.
The point was made forcefully during the hearing by one of the defence’s most powerful witnesses, Daniel Ellsberg.
It was also made forcefully to Consortium News by one of its readers, who has correctly pointed out that the crimes which Assange exposed were clearly defined as war crimes by the Nuremberg Tribunal, whose decisions are universally accepted as forming the bedrock of international war crimes law.
The Nuremberg Tribunal, moreover, made it clear that there is not only a positive duty to refuse to participate in such crimes, even when ordered to do so, but that no sanctions should ever been imposed for exposing such crimes when they occur.
Judges’ bench at international military tribunal at Nuremberg, 1946. (Wikimedia Commons)
In other words, it is Assange and his sources, first and foremost Chelsea Manning, who are the defenders of international law, including the Nuremberg Principles, and including in the case which is currently underway, whilst it is those who persecute them, including by bringing the current case against Assange, who are international law’s violators.
This is the single most important fact about this case, and it explains everything about it.
Assange and Manning have paid an enormous price for their defence of international law, and for the principles of basic human decency and humanity.
Manning was recently held in long spells of solitary detention, and has had her savings confiscated by the U.S. authorities, for no reason other than that she has refused to testify against Assange.
Assange has been subjected to what various UN agencies have characterized as long periods of arbitrary detention and psychological torture.
He continues to be denied bail, despite his known health problems, and is separated from his family.
He continues to have difficulties consulting privately with his lawyers, and has been exposed to the indignity — qualified in other cases by the European Court for Human Rights as a human rights violation — of being kept inside court rooms confined to a glass box or cage.
John Pilger has described vividly and in great detail, including to Consortium News, the inhuman conditions to which Assange is daily exposed to. That these amount to human rights violations ought not to require discussion or explanation.
International Conventions
That these human rights violations breach a host of international conventions to which Britain is a signatory, including against torture and arbitrary detention, in respect of the right to a fair trial, in respect of the right to privacy and dignity of the person, and of the right to a family life, also ought not to require discussion or explanation.
Recently, there has been an outcry in Britain because legislation the British government is proposing, which would allow it to modify unilaterally the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement it agreed last year with the European Union, breaches international law.
Without in any way disputing the importance of this issue, which may have important consequences for peace in Ireland, I find the angry protestations of some British journalists and politicians, that Britain never violates international law, frankly unreal.
If they want examples of Britain violating international law, they need look no further than the facts of Assange’s case. They might also benefit from looking at what has been said over the course of the ongoing hearing in the Central Criminal Court.
Despite all the difficulties, there is however no reason to give up hope.
London graffiti, March 2020. (duncan c, Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0)
The extraordinary zigzags the U.S. government has been forced to make as it tries and fails to put a coherent and convincing case against Julian Assange together show that the law, for all its many flaws, remains an important defence.
I am aware of the many criticisms which have been made of Vanessa Baraitser, the judge who is hearing Assange’s case. I don’t disagree with any of them.
However, I do get the impression that Baraitser’s patience has been sorely tried by the U.S. government’s repeated and dizzying changes of position. I also get the impression that she was particularly annoyed when the U.S. government, on the virtual eve of the hearing, presented to the court and the defence its second superseding indictment, which in effect made a nonsense of the first.
That may explain why the U.S. government’s British lawyers have largely conducted the case as if the second superseding indictment did not exist, basing their arguments mostly on what the first superseding indictment says, though perhaps unsurprisingly, and to the bafflement of the experts, they are now increasingly making arguments which have no basis in any indictment.
Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, Baraitser has rejected the U.S. government’s various attempts to exclude en masse the evidence of defence witnesses, even if she has imposed a 30-minute guillotine on their examination in chief (direct examination) by defence lawyers.
In summary, and in my opinion, there is still a chance, however small, that Baraitser will decide the case in Assange’s favour.
If she does not do so, then I would have thought, based on what has happened over the course of the hearing, that Assange will have good prospects on appeal.
More encouraging than what has been happening inside the court, where the outcome remains very much in doubt, and where the prospects must be considered problematic to say the least, is what has been happening outside.
My wife, who attended one of the hearings last week, saw placards held up by some of Assange’s supporters outside the court, which called on road users to honk their horns in support of Assange. To her delighted astonishment, despite the media blackout which surrounds the case, and despite the long campaign of character assassination to which Assange has been subjected, an extraordinarily high proportion of road users (more than a quarter) did so.
That reinforces my sense that the tide of opinion, at least in Britain, is shifting. The battle is far from over, and can still be won.
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