theduran--2020-02-26--The Nobel Peace Prize Is A Sick Joke

The Nobel Peace Prize Is A Sick Joke

The Nobel Peace Prize was founded in 1901 by Alfred Nobel , an arms manufacturer .
His family factory first gained notoriety for producing weapons for the Crimean War of 1853-1856 .
Alfred Nobel invented dynamite and various other powerful explosives .
These explosives were used to devastate people in conflicts such as the Spanish-American War .
After Nobel ’ s brother died , because of a journalistic error , the public believed that Alfred Nobel had died .
In his obituary , he was portrayed as an amoral businessman who made millions of dollars off of the deaths of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the merchant of death is dead ” and that Alfred Nobel “ became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before.
” According to Live Science , this discovery shocked Nobel , and to improve his legacy , “ one year before he died in 1896 , Nobel signed his last will and testament , which set aside the majority of his vast estate to establish the five Nobel Prizes , including one awarded for the pursuit of peace.
” This may very well have been a genuine act @ @ @ @ @ @ @ parallels between the origin of the award and its not so peaceful recipients .
Here are three of the Nobel Peace Prize winners that turned out to be war criminals .
Henry Kissinger won the award in 1973 for his “ efforts ” to conclude the Vietnam War .
What a joke .
In 1968 , Kissinger helped tank President Johnson ’ s peace talks on behalf of the Nixon campaign for political gain .
Kissinger helped orchestrate the secret bombing of Cambodia .
These bombing operations were known as Operation Menu and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Cambodia led to the deaths of 10,000s , if not 100,000s , of Cambodian civilians .
The total death count has been estimated to be as high as 500,000 ( most estimates range between 150,000-300,000 deaths ) .
The vast majority of these deaths are considered to be civilians because of the indiscriminate nature of the carpet bombing .
These bombings also destabilized Cambodia and allowed for the rise of the genocidal ruler , Pol-Pot .
The bombing campaign was so gratuitous that it made Congress pass the War Powers Resolution in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the bombing campaign .
With all of that being said , Kissinger still won the award for his role in the Paris Peace Accords .
The peace talks began in 1968 , the same year that Kissinger undermined the process to win an election for Nixon .
After the agreement was signed in January 1973 , it lasted less than two months before full-scale war broke out again in March 1973 .
After winning the award , Henry Kissinger then proceeded to indirectly back Pol Pot ’ s genocide in Cambodia .
This @ @ @ @ @ @ @ put pressure on the former North Vietnamese Army .
Pol-Pot ’ s genocide killed between 1.5-2 million people ( 20 % -25 % of Cambodia ’ s population ) .
Henry Kissinger ’ s crimes are not limited to Vietnam .
He has a long bloody history in Latin America as well .
Kissinger was a major proponent of Operation Condor .
The highly secretive US-backed campaign enabled South American dictators to kill an estimated 60,000 to 80,000 people .
It also led to political imprisonments of over 400,000 people .
Transcripts of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s election in 1970 , Kissinger began plotting a coup with CIA director Richard Helm .
After the 1973 coup in Chile , Kissinger , as Secretary of State , formalized close ties between Pinochet and the United States .
For years to come , Kissinger proceeded to have close ties with the Chilean dictator , Augusto Pinochet , who killed 1000s of his political opponents and imprisoned and tortured 10,000s more .
Pinochet popularized death flights : a practice where people ’ s stomachs were cut open before they were tossed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kissinger also backed Argentina ’ s military dictatorship .
He was buddy-buddy with Jorge Videla , a dictator who disappeared an estimated 30,000 political dissidents .
Videla also tortured political opponents and their families at secret concentration camps .
Kissinger encouraged all of this brutality and praised the dictatorship for stamping out “ terrorism.
” Henry Kissinger ’ s war crimes are far too numerous to neatly fit into one article .
For a better understanding of his many war crimes that I left out , I recommend reading The Trail of Henry @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his “ extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people.
” Before digging into Obama ’ s war crimes , I would like to add a few caveats .
Obama is not exactly like Kissinger .
On the 2008 campaign trail , Obama did claim that he would meet with adversaries without preconditions .
Furthermore , he followed through on this promise in two major ways .
He successfully negotiated the Iran Deal and lifted the embargo on Cuba .
These are not accomplishments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ being said , Obama ’ s diplomatic achievements are overshadowed by his imperialist failures .
I also blame most of Obama ’ s failures on a lack of conviction in his values and not on any Machiavellian schemes .
Most of Obama ’ s bad foreign policy decisions can be traced back to him getting rolled by people in the military industrial complex establishment like his CIA director John O. Brennan .
Barack Obama ’ s most reprehensible policy was his support of the Saudi Arabian-fueled genocide in Yemen .
Obama authorized mid-air @ @ @ @ @ @ @ twice per day and he set up a Joint Planning Cell to give Saudi intelligence and logistical support to bomb Yemen .
Obama also approved 10s of billions in arms sales to Saudi Arabia that were used to devastate Yemen ’ s infrastructure and throw the country into a mass famine .
In 2016 alone , Obama ’ s policies led to the deaths of 63,000 Yemeni children .
They died from preventable causes overwhelmingly linked to malnutrition .
These deaths were caused by the Saudi bombing campaign and the de-facto blockade of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Arabia , with US backing , bombed the cranes at the port of Hodeidah in August 2015 .
70 % of all humanitarian assistance to Yemen is channeled through Hodeidah .
Bombing the cranes of the major port in this area is a war crime .
In fact , humanitarian aid groups warned that the US-backed August 2015 bombings would lead to mass child death in Yemen .
The Obama administration ’ s support and aid of these siege warfare tactics was an abhorrent moral failure .
It is highly unlikely that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ possible without US support .
Neither Saudi Arabia or the UAE had the ability to wage a sustained bombing campaign without outside support from a major imperialist power like the United States .
Barack Obama also authorized Operation Timber Sycamore , the CIA train-and-equip program in Syria .
The multi-billion-dollar program armed and trained fighters to topple Assad .
I personally believe that the Syrian conflict is not black and white .
There is a lot of blame to go around .
In my opinion , both pro-Assad and anti-Assad writers do not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ half a dozen countries helped fuel the proxy war for different reasons , and Assad himself is not simply a victim of Western imperialism .
Those caveats aside , it is very clear that Timber Sycamore was a terrible idea that led to textbook mutual escalation that broke open the Syrian conflict further and might well be the reason that 100,000s more Syrians died .
Billions of dollars were poured into “ vetted ” rebel groups .
Many of these groups turned out to be Salafi jihadist groups and Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ war crimes .
Among these groups that received either training or weapons were Ahrar al Sham , Jaysh al Islam , and Nour al-Din al-Zenki , all of whom have been accused of war crimes as per Amnesty International .
The massive delivery of BGM-71 TOWs via Timber Sycamore is also sometimes cited ( in my opinion correctly ) as the policy that caused Russia to intervene in Syria .
This is the aforementioned textbook case of mutual escalation .
Obama also set up a worldwide drone program that Noam Chomsky called “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ times.
” A study done in Afghanistan over a six-month period found that 90 % of people killed in US drone strikes were not the intended targets .
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism is one resource that has documented the high civilian casualty rate that occurred under Obama ’ s drone program ( and continued and oftentimes increased under Trump ’ s administration ) .
Aung San Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for “ her nonviolent struggle for democracy and human rights.
” She is currently the State Counsellor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Myanmar .
State Counsellor Suu Kyi just oversaw one of the largest violent ethnic cleansing projects of the 21st century .
It turns out that she fought for human rights and democracy…unless you are a Rohingya Muslim .
The crackdown on the Rohingya that Suu Kyi oversaw led to a conservative death toll of 10,000 Rohingya .
The Myanmar military burned children alive and raped 1000s of Rohingya women .
Since 2015 , over 900,000 Rohingya have had to flee from Myanmar , mostly into neighboring Bangladesh .
There have been claims that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a response to violent Rohingya extremist groups that operated in the Rakhine State area of Myanmar .
I find this to be plausible given the history of oppression that Rohingya faced and their subsequent insurrections dating back over a half a century .
However , this certainly does not excuse hacking Rohingya civilians to death with machetes ( similar to what the Hutus did to the Tutsis in the Rwandan genocide ) State Counsellor Suu Kyi denied that an ethnic cleansing project was taking place and she backed the military crackdown .
She @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her military by stating “ there have been allegations and counter-allegations…We have to listen to all of them.
” Suu Kyi proceeded to be the figurehead that attacked the International Criminal Court investigations into Myanmar ’ s ethnic cleansing project as “ not in accordance with international law.
” She proceeded to run interference for her military ’ s war crimes at the UN .
To be clear , as I alluded to above , not all Rohingya are innocent in the conflict .
There are credible reports that tie some of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ outside Saudi funding .
But it is a false equivalency used by ethnic cleansing apologists to conflate all the Rohingya in Myanmar with Al Qaeda .
Buddhist nationalists used the ( likely ) correct allegation that worldwide terrorism sponsor Saudi Arabia was funding a couple of Rohingya groups as an excuse to ethnically cleanse an entire population that is mostly peaceful .
It ’ s very simple .
The Nobel Peace Prize is just like most other awards .
Sometimes its distributors get it right and sometimes they get it wrong .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them based off of objective score cards about morality .
They win these awards based off of media narratives .
When the Nobel Peace Prize awarded Martin Luther King Jr. with the award , they got it right .
When they awarded Henry Kissinger with the award , they exposed themselves to be clowns of the highest order .
Do not take awards like the Nobel Peace Prize seriously .
They are popularity contests , where oftentimes those that are popular are actually in favor of abhorrent policies .

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
Authored by Ben Barbour via Off-Guardian.org:
The Nobel Peace Prize was founded in 1901 by Alfred Nobel, an arms manufacturer. His family factory first gained notoriety for producing weapons for the Crimean War of 1853-1856. Alfred Nobel invented dynamite and various other powerful explosives. These explosives were used to devastate people in conflicts such as the Spanish-American War.
After Nobel’s brother died, because of a journalistic error, the public believed that Alfred Nobel had died. In his obituary, he was portrayed as an amoral businessman who made millions of dollars off of the deaths of others. His critics declared that “the merchant of death is dead” and that Alfred Nobel “became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before.”
According to Live Science, this discovery shocked Nobel, and to improve his legacy, “one year before he died in 1896, Nobel signed his last will and testament, which set aside the majority of his vast estate to establish the five Nobel Prizes, including one awarded for the pursuit of peace.” This may very well have been a genuine act, but it is important to draw parallels between the origin of the award and its not so peaceful recipients. Here are three of the Nobel Peace Prize winners that turned out to be war criminals.
Henry Kissinger
Henry Kissinger won the award in 1973 for his “efforts” to conclude the Vietnam War. What a joke. In 1968, Kissinger helped tank President Johnson’s peace talks on behalf of the Nixon campaign for political gain. Kissinger helped orchestrate the secret bombing of Cambodia. These bombing operations were known as Operation Menu and Operation Freedom Deal.
The carpet bombing of Cambodia led to the deaths of 10,000s, if not 100,000s, of Cambodian civilians. The total death count has been estimated to be as high as 500,000 (most estimates range between 150,000-300,000 deaths). The vast majority of these deaths are considered to be civilians because of the indiscriminate nature of the carpet bombing. These bombings also destabilized Cambodia and allowed for the rise of the genocidal ruler, Pol-Pot. The bombing campaign was so gratuitous that it made Congress pass the War Powers Resolution in 1973, in an attempt to curb the bombing campaign.
With all of that being said, Kissinger still won the award for his role in the Paris Peace Accords. The peace talks began in 1968, the same year that Kissinger undermined the process to win an election for Nixon. After the agreement was signed in January 1973, it lasted less than two months before full-scale war broke out again in March 1973.
After winning the award, Henry Kissinger then proceeded to indirectly back Pol Pot’s genocide in Cambodia. This was done primarily as a way to put pressure on the former North Vietnamese Army. Pol-Pot’s genocide killed between 1.5-2 million people (20%-25% of Cambodia’s population).
Henry Kissinger’s crimes are not limited to Vietnam. He has a long bloody history in Latin America as well. Kissinger was a major proponent of Operation Condor. The highly secretive US-backed campaign enabled South American dictators to kill an estimated 60,000 to 80,000 people. It also led to political imprisonments of over 400,000 people. Transcripts of telephone conversations reveal that after President Allende’s election in 1970, Kissinger began plotting a coup with CIA director Richard Helm. After the 1973 coup in Chile, Kissinger, as Secretary of State, formalized close ties between Pinochet and the United States.
For years to come, Kissinger proceeded to have close ties with the Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet, who killed 1000s of his political opponents and imprisoned and tortured 10,000s more. Pinochet popularized death flights: a practice where people’s stomachs were cut open before they were tossed out of planes into the ocean.
Kissinger also backed Argentina’s military dictatorship. He was buddy-buddy with Jorge Videla, a dictator who disappeared an estimated 30,000 political dissidents. Videla also tortured political opponents and their families at secret concentration camps. Kissinger encouraged all of this brutality and praised the dictatorship for stamping out “terrorism.”
Henry Kissinger’s war crimes are far too numerous to neatly fit into one article. For a better understanding of his many war crimes that I left out, I recommend reading The Trail of Henry Kissinger.
Barack Obama
In 2009, Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people.” Before digging into Obama’s war crimes, I would like to add a few caveats. Obama is not exactly like Kissinger.
On the 2008 campaign trail, Obama did claim that he would meet with adversaries without preconditions. Furthermore, he followed through on this promise in two major ways. He successfully negotiated the Iran Deal and lifted the embargo on Cuba. These are not accomplishments that should be brushed aside. That being said, Obama’s diplomatic achievements are overshadowed by his imperialist failures. I also blame most of Obama’s failures on a lack of conviction in his values and not on any Machiavellian schemes. Most of Obama’s bad foreign policy decisions can be traced back to him getting rolled by people in the military industrial complex establishment like his CIA director John O. Brennan.
Barack Obama’s most reprehensible policy was his support of the Saudi Arabian-fueled genocide in Yemen. Obama authorized mid-air refueling to refuel Saudi bombers on average twice per day and he set up a Joint Planning Cell to give Saudi intelligence and logistical support to bomb Yemen.
Obama also approved 10s of billions in arms sales to Saudi Arabia that were used to devastate Yemen’s infrastructure and throw the country into a mass famine.
In 2016 alone, Obama’s policies led to the deaths of 63,000 Yemeni children. They died from preventable causes overwhelmingly linked to malnutrition. These deaths were caused by the Saudi bombing campaign and the de-facto blockade of humanitarian aid.
For example, Saudi Arabia, with US backing, bombed the cranes at the port of Hodeidah in August 2015. 70% of all humanitarian assistance to Yemen is channeled through Hodeidah. Bombing the cranes of the major port in this area is a war crime.
In fact, humanitarian aid groups warned that the US-backed August 2015 bombings would lead to mass child death in Yemen. The Obama administration’s support and aid of these siege warfare tactics was an abhorrent moral failure. It is highly unlikely that the war in Yemen would have even been possible without US support. Neither Saudi Arabia or the UAE had the ability to wage a sustained bombing campaign without outside support from a major imperialist power like the United States.
Barack Obama also authorized Operation Timber Sycamore, the CIA train-and-equip program in Syria. The multi-billion-dollar program armed and trained fighters to topple Assad. I personally believe that the Syrian conflict is not black and white. There is a lot of blame to go around. In my opinion, both pro-Assad and anti-Assad writers do not tell the entire complex story. Over half a dozen countries helped fuel the proxy war for different reasons, and Assad himself is not simply a victim of Western imperialism.
Those caveats aside, it is very clear that Timber Sycamore was a terrible idea that led to textbook mutual escalation that broke open the Syrian conflict further and might well be the reason that 100,000s more Syrians died. Billions of dollars were poured into “vetted” rebel groups. Many of these groups turned out to be Salafi jihadist groups and Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups that carried out ethnic murder and various other war crimes.
Among these groups that received either training or weapons were Ahrar al Sham, Jaysh al Islam, and Nour al-Din al-Zenki, all of whom have been accused of war crimes as per Amnesty International. The massive delivery of BGM-71 TOWs via Timber Sycamore is also sometimes cited (in my opinion correctly) as the policy that caused Russia to intervene in Syria. This is the aforementioned textbook case of mutual escalation.
Obama also set up a worldwide drone program that Noam Chomsky called “the most extreme terrorist campaign of modern times.” A study done in Afghanistan over a six-month period found that 90% of people killed in US drone strikes were not the intended targets. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism is one resource that has documented the high civilian casualty rate that occurred under Obama’s drone program (and continued and oftentimes increased under Trump’s administration).
Aung San Suu Kyi
Aung San Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for “her nonviolent struggle for democracy and human rights.” She is currently the State Counsellor (equivalent of prime minister) of Myanmar. State Counsellor Suu Kyi just oversaw one of the largest violent ethnic cleansing projects of the 21st century. It turns out that she fought for human rights and democracy…unless you are a Rohingya Muslim.
The crackdown on the Rohingya that Suu Kyi oversaw led to a conservative death toll of 10,000 Rohingya. The Myanmar military burned children alive and raped 1000s of Rohingya women. Since 2015, over 900,000 Rohingya have had to flee from Myanmar, mostly into neighboring Bangladesh.
There have been claims that the ethnic cleansing project may have been a response to violent Rohingya extremist groups that operated in the Rakhine State area of Myanmar. I find this to be plausible given the history of oppression that Rohingya faced and their subsequent insurrections dating back over a half a century.
However, this certainly does not excuse hacking Rohingya civilians to death with machetes (similar to what the Hutus did to the Tutsis in the Rwandan genocide)
State Counsellor Suu Kyi denied that an ethnic cleansing project was taking place and she backed the military crackdown. She gave cover for the war criminals in her military by stating “there have been allegations and counter-allegations…We have to listen to all of them.”
Suu Kyi proceeded to be the figurehead that attacked the International Criminal Court investigations into Myanmar’s ethnic cleansing project as “not in accordance with international law.” She proceeded to run interference for her military’s war crimes at the UN.
To be clear, as I alluded to above, not all Rohingya are innocent in the conflict. There are credible reports that tie some of the more extremist groups in Rakhine State to outside Saudi funding. But it is a false equivalency used by ethnic cleansing apologists to conflate all the Rohingya in Myanmar with Al Qaeda. Buddhist nationalists used the (likely) correct allegation that worldwide terrorism sponsor Saudi Arabia was funding a couple of Rohingya groups as an excuse to ethnically cleanse an entire population that is mostly peaceful.
Conclusion
It’s very simple. The Nobel Peace Prize is just like most other awards. Sometimes its distributors get it right and sometimes they get it wrong. The people that win awards do not win them based off of objective score cards about morality. They win these awards based off of media narratives. When the Nobel Peace Prize awarded Martin Luther King Jr. with the award, they got it right. When they awarded Henry Kissinger with the award, they exposed themselves to be clowns of the highest order. Do not take awards like the Nobel Peace Prize seriously. They are popularity contests, where oftentimes those that are popular are actually in favor of abhorrent policies.
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theduran--2020-02-26--Trump’s Betrayal of Julian Assange

Trump’s Betrayal of Julian Assange

One thing we ’ ve learned from the Trump Presidency is that the “ deep state ” is not just some crazy conspiracy theory .
For the past three years we ’ ve seen that deep state launch plot after plot to overturn the election .
It all started with former CIA director John Brennan ’ s phony “ Intelligence Assessment ” of Russian involvement in the 2016 election .
It was claimed that all 17 US intelligence agencies agreed that Putin put Trump in office , but we found out later that the report was cooked up by a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Donald Trump upset the Washington apple cart as presidential candidate and in so doing he set elements of the deep state in motion against him .
One of the things candidate Donald Trump did to paint a deep state target on his back was his repeated praise of Wikileaks , the pro-transparency media organization headed up by Australian journalist Julian Assange .
More than 100 times candidate Trump said “ I love Wikileaks ” on the campaign trail .
Trump loved it when Wikileaks exposed the criminality of Hillary Clinton and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deprive Bernie Sanders of the Democratic Party nomination .
Wikileaks ’ release of the DNC emails exposed the deep corruption at the heart of US politics , and as a candidate Trump loved the transparency .
The real tragedy of the Trump presidency is nowhere better demonstrated than in Trump ’ s 180 degree turn away from Wikileaks and its founder Julian Assange .
“ I know nothing about Wikileaks , ” he said as president .
“ It ’ s really not my thing .
”

One thing we’ve learned from the Trump Presidency is that the “deep state” is not just some crazy conspiracy theory. For the past three years we’ve seen that deep state launch plot after plot to overturn the election.
It all started with former CIA director John Brennan’s phony “Intelligence Assessment” of Russian involvement in the 2016 election. It was claimed that all 17 US intelligence agencies agreed that Putin put Trump in office, but we found out later that the report was cooked up by a handful of Brennan’s hand-picked agents.
Donald Trump upset the Washington apple cart as presidential candidate and in so doing he set elements of the deep state in motion against him.
One of the things candidate Donald Trump did to paint a deep state target on his back was his repeated praise of Wikileaks, the pro-transparency media organization headed up by Australian journalist Julian Assange. More than 100 times candidate Trump said “I love Wikileaks” on the campaign trail.
Trump loved it when Wikileaks exposed the criminality of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party, as it cheated to deprive Bernie Sanders of the Democratic Party nomination. Wikileaks’ release of the DNC emails exposed the deep corruption at the heart of US politics, and as a candidate Trump loved the transparency.
Then Trump got elected.
The real tragedy of the Trump presidency is nowhere better demonstrated than in Trump’s 180 degree turn away from Wikileaks and its founder Julian Assange. “I know nothing about Wikileaks,” he said as president. “It’s really not my thing.”


theduran--2020-02-26--Trump’s visit to India, Steering the Blob

02/25/20 – Donald Trump has gone to India and done what he has always said he was going to do for America .
He made a deal .
He made a few .
Or , perhaps , more correctly , many deals have been made with his blessing .
More than that he has launched a commercial direction that will almost certainly put a serious challenge to the secretive Pakistan-centric STATE betrayal of America .
US foreign policy leadership at STATE and CIA is locked in deadly tension with the White House for its ’ stock portfolios , grants , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in an arms trade with Pakistan that goes back to the late 1940 ’ s .
It ’ s a boatload of corruption and Donald Trump has just fired a salvo of torpedos at it in the form of trade deals for exactly that sector of American industry that has been stepping up to the trough for Pakistani K street deals and kickbacks .
At a glance , the value of investment in the Indian economy over the Pakistani economy is a vastly superior investment .
The implications for South Asia are seismic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Trump is commanding foreign policy through trade policy .
In the space of this article , jezail.org will only touch on some limited aspects that immediately jump out at us .
As jezail.org has pointed out many times before , Pakistan has always been a much under estimated problem in American foreign policy and domestic politics .
Pakistan ’ s footprint in America has always been most discreet but it has a history of meddling in American politics that is certainly far greater than the Russian “ interference ” we read and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there have been investigations and indictments with no real result .
India has always been a possible counter balance .
Now Mr. Trump has made it real .
He ’ s grabbed the tiller of foreign policy and steered it as no American president has in many years .
Jezail.org has never been afraid to criticize Mr. Trump and we are not MAGA hat bobble heads .
But we are most impressed with the Indian policy steer by Mr. Trump .
This has not just been a feat of deal making .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ diplomacy .
India and the US have areas of significant tension .
With the exception of the S400 missile deal , almost all of them revolve around Pakistan .
However , Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Modi have delicately walked around very pointed press questions concerning America ’ s relationship with Pakistan .
From the start , it has been the invisible 800 lb .
gorilla in the room .
Both have been very careful to tiptoe around Kashmir .
There was no mention of the riots in Delhi .
Both leaders apparently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was much that would be wise to leave unsaid and spun the questions into mutual praise and confidence .
This is real diplomacy .
In contrast to STATE ’ s checkbook diplomacy , delicate straddling of issues is what is much needed in American diplomatic maneuvering in South Asia .
Mr. Trump has been uncharacteristically deft in his remarks .
It is a real strength of diplomacy to be able to straddle tensions and make deals .
Mr. Trump has confounded his American critics and hit one out of the ball park .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of courageous .
Trump is beginning to build up a much needed momentum against his Democrat rival , likely Bernie Sanders .
If Sanders wins the nomination , it will be the first election that has the appearance of providing a real choice for some time .
Sanders is clearly building up a momentum of his own .
The voter turnout will be heavy .
Many on the Republican side of the aisle are willing to coast to a victory but it would be exactly the mistake the Clinton campaign made in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He has already been making appearances at rallies across America .
He took a break on campaigning to seal the Indian deals that are worth an estimated $ 142 billion and could double in one year .
While there is more work to be done , what has been accomplished has been most impressive .
The deals are not strictly military .
They are also for oil , gas and a $ 2 billion dollar deal for coal .
Coal means jobs in Democrat held West Virginia .
The possibility of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is not hard to imagine as America ’ s relationship with China sours and Chinese wages rise .
Moreover , this is a transactional relationship , not one of dependency as so many of imperial America ’ s relationships are .
This is a huge accomplishment of substance that starkly contrasts the empty rhetoric of Mr. Trump ’ s rivals .
this really is a done deal .
It is interesting to note that a number of news organizations have released recent videos claiming that no deal has been struck .
These are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ both Mr. Modi and Mr. Trump have said .
Mr. Trump didn ’ t simply show up in India and make a deal .
Rather , he sealed the deals on already growing trade between the US and India .
There are sticking points in a complex relationship but the pace of trade deals between India and the US has been picking up dramatically .
Boeing has been making deals and has set up a Bengaluru design campus in India .
India ’ s long over due need to modernize its ’ military @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to build parts for a wide variety of aircraft and data analytics programs .
So not only are they buying products from the US , they are manufacturing parts for US supply chains .
Already sold mounted howitzers , apache , MH-60 , and Chinook helicopters , P8 aircraft and F18 Hornets as well as civilian aircraft all contradict reports that a deal has not been made .
It doesn ’ t matter that both leaders have repeatedly contradicted these false reports .
What this disinformation does signal is that Mr. Trump ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of this achievement .
We ’ ve seen that before haven ’ t we ?
A deal has been made .
Actually , many deals have been made .
It is a watershed and you ’ re not likely to hear much positive about it in MSM .
Regards to All , We name names , not just policies

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
02/25/20 – Donald Trump has gone to India and done what he has always said he was going to do for America. He made a deal. He made a few. Or, perhaps, more correctly, many deals have been made with his blessing. More than that he has launched a commercial direction that will almost certainly put a serious challenge to the secretive Pakistan-centric STATE betrayal of America. US foreign policy leadership at STATE and CIA is locked in deadly tension with the White House for its’ stock portfolios, grants, career paths and lines of patronage anchored in an arms trade with Pakistan that goes back to the late 1940’s. It’s a boatload of corruption and Donald Trump has just fired a salvo of torpedos at it in the form of trade deals for exactly that sector of American industry that has been stepping up to the trough for Pakistani K street deals and kickbacks. At a glance, the value of investment in the Indian economy over the Pakistani economy is a vastly superior investment. The implications for South Asia are seismic. They are for America as well. Trump is commanding foreign policy through trade policy. In the space of this article, jezail.org will only touch on some limited aspects that immediately jump out at us.
As jezail.org has pointed out many times before, Pakistan has always been a much under estimated problem in American foreign policy and domestic politics. Pakistan’s footprint in America has always been most discreet but it has a history of meddling in American politics that is certainly far greater than the Russian “interference” we read and hear about. Time and again, there have been investigations and indictments with no real result. India has always been a possible counter balance. Now Mr. Trump has made it real. He’s grabbed the tiller of foreign policy and steered it as no American president has in many years. Jezail.org has never been afraid to criticize Mr. Trump and we are not MAGA hat bobble heads. But we are most impressed with the Indian policy steer by Mr. Trump.
This has not just been a feat of deal making. It has also been a master stroke of diplomacy. India and the US have areas of significant tension. With the exception of the S400 missile deal, almost all of them revolve around Pakistan. However, Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Modi have delicately walked around very pointed press questions concerning America’s relationship with Pakistan. From the start, it has been the invisible 800 lb. gorilla in the room. Both have been very careful to tiptoe around Kashmir. There was no mention of the riots in Delhi. Both leaders apparently have had the mutual realization that there was much that would be wise to leave unsaid and spun the questions into mutual praise and confidence. This is real diplomacy. In contrast to STATE’s checkbook diplomacy, delicate straddling of issues is what is much needed in American diplomatic maneuvering in South Asia. Mr. Trump has been uncharacteristically deft in his remarks. It is a real strength of diplomacy to be able to straddle tensions and make deals. Mr. Trump has confounded his American critics and hit one out of the ball park.
The timing of this is nothing short of courageous. Trump is beginning to build up a much needed momentum against his Democrat rival, likely Bernie Sanders. If Sanders wins the nomination, it will be the first election that has the appearance of providing a real choice for some time. Sanders is clearly building up a momentum of his own. The voter turnout will be heavy. Many on the Republican side of the aisle are willing to coast to a victory but it would be exactly the mistake the Clinton campaign made in the last election. Mr. Trump knows this. He has already been making appearances at rallies across America. He took a break on campaigning to seal the Indian deals that are worth an estimated $142 billion and could double in one year. While there is more work to be done, what has been accomplished has been most impressive. The deals are not strictly military. They are also for oil, gas and a $2 billion dollar deal for coal. Coal means jobs in Democrat held West Virginia. The possibility of the deal value doubling in a short time is not hard to imagine as America’s relationship with China sours and Chinese wages rise. Moreover, this is a transactional relationship, not one of dependency as so many of imperial America’s relationships are. This is a huge accomplishment of substance that starkly contrasts the empty rhetoric of Mr. Trump’s rivals. this really is a done deal.
It is interesting to note that a number of news organizations have released recent videos claiming that no deal has been struck. These are clearly disingenuous reports. They contradict what both Mr. Modi and Mr. Trump have said. Mr. Trump didn’t simply show up in India and make a deal. Rather, he sealed the deals on already growing trade between the US and India. There are sticking points in a complex relationship but the pace of trade deals between India and the US has been picking up dramatically. Boeing has been making deals and has set up a Bengaluru design campus in India. India’s long over due need to modernize its’ military has inspired advanced deals and built facilities to build parts for a wide variety of aircraft and data analytics programs. So not only are they buying products from the US, they are manufacturing parts for US supply chains. Already sold mounted howitzers, apache, MH-60, and Chinook helicopters, P8 aircraft and F18 Hornets as well as civilian aircraft all contradict reports that a deal has not been made. It doesn’t matter that both leaders have repeatedly contradicted these false reports. What this disinformation does signal is that Mr. Trump’s adversaries are terrified of the implications of this achievement. We’ve seen that before haven’t we?
A deal has been made. Actually, many deals have been made. It is a watershed and you’re not likely to hear much positive about it in MSM.
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theduran--2020-02-25--Craig Murray’s Report on Day One of Assange in Court:

Woolwich Crown Court , which hosts Belmarsh Magistrates Court , is built on totally the opposite principle .
It is designed with no other purpose than to exclude the public .
Attached to a prison on a windswept marsh far from any normal social centre , an island accessible only through navigating a maze of dual carriageways , the entire location and architecture of the building is predicated on preventing public access .
It is surrounded by a continuation of the same extremely heavy duty steel paling barrier that surrounds the prison .
It is the most extraordinary thing , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the prison system itself , a place where you are already considered guilty and in jail on arrival .
Woolwich Crown Court is nothing but the physical negation of the presumption of innocence , the very incarnation of injustice in unyielding steel , concrete and armoured glass .
It has precisely the same relationship to the administration of justice as Guantanamo Bay or the Lubyanka .
It is in truth just the sentencing wing of Belmarsh prison .
When enquiring about facilities for the public to attend the hearing , an Assange activist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ staff that we should realise that Woolwich is a “ counter-terrorism court ” .
That is true de facto , but in truth a “ counter-terrorism court ” is an institution unknown to the UK constitution .
Indeed , if a single day at Woolwich Crown Court does not convince you the existence of liberal democracy is now a lie , then your mind must be very closed indeed .
Extradition hearings are not held at Belmarsh Magistrates Court inside Woolwich Crown Court .
They are always held at Westminster Magistrates Court as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the government at Westminster .
Now get your head around this .
This hearing is at Westminster Magistrates Court .
It is being held by the Westminster magistrates and Westminster court staff , but located at Belmarsh Magistrates Court inside Woolwich Crown Court .
All of which weird convolution is precisely so they can use the “ counter-terrorist court ” to limit public access and to impose the fear of the power of the state .
One consequence is that , in the courtroom itself , Julian Assange is confined at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ glass screen .
He made the point several times during proceedings that this makes it very difficult for him to see and hear the proceedings .
The magistrate , Vanessa Baraitser , chose to interpret this with studied dishonesty as a problem caused by the very faint noise of demonstrators outside , as opposed to a problem caused by Assange being locked away from the court in a massive bulletproof glass box .
Now there is no reason at all for Assange to be in that box , designed to restrain extremely physically @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a defendant at a hearing normally would , in the body of the court with his lawyers .
But the cowardly and vicious Baraitser has refused repeated and persistent requests from the defence for Assange to be allowed to sit with his lawyers .
Baraitser of course is but a puppet , being supervised by Chief Magistrate Lady Arbuthnot , a woman so enmeshed in the defence and security service establishment I can conceive of no way in which her involvement in this case could be more corrupt .
It does not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is any genuine need for Assange to be incarcerated in a bulletproof box , or whether it stops him from following proceedings in court .
Baraitser ’ s intention is to humiliate Assange , and to instill in the rest of us horror at the vast crushing power of the state .
The inexorable strength of the sentencing wing of the nightmarish Belmarsh Prison must be maintained .
If you are here , you are guilty .
It ’ s the Lubyanka .
You may only be a remand prisoner .
This may @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
You may have no history of violence and not be accused of any violence .
You may have three of the country ’ s most eminent psychiatrists submitting reports of your history of severe clinical depression and warning of suicide .
But I , Vanessa Baraitser , am still going to lock you up in a box designed for the most violent of terrorists .
To show what we can do to dissidents .
And if you can ’ t then follow court proceedings , all the better .
You will perhaps @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Court when I tell you that , for a hearing being followed all round the world , they have brought it to a courtroom which had a total number of sixteen seats available to members of the public .
16 .
To make sure I got one of those 16 and could be your man in the gallery , I was outside that great locked iron fence queuing in the cold , wet and wind from 6am .
At 8am the gate was unlocked , and I was able to walk inside the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the courtroom , where despite the fact notices clearly state the court opens to the public at 8am , I had to queue outside the building again for another hour and forty minutes .
Then I was processed through armoured airlock doors , through airport type security , and had to queue behind two further locked doors , before finally getting to my seat just as the court started at 10am .
By which stage the intention was we should have been thoroughly cowed and intimidated , not to mention drenched and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ media entrance and a media room with live transmission from the courtroom , and there were so many scores of media I thought I could relax and not worry as the basic facts would be widely reported .
In fact , I could not have been more wrong .
I followed the arguments very clearly every minute of the day , and not a single one of the most important facts and arguments today has been reported anywhere in the mainstream media .
That is a bold claim , but I fear it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ much work to do to let the world know what actually happened .
The mere act of being an honest witness is suddenly extremely important , when the entire media has abandoned that role .
James Lewis QC made the opening statement for the prosecution .
It consisted of two parts , both equally extraordinary .
The first and longest part was truly remarkable for containing no legal argument , and for being addressed not to the magistrate but to the media .
It is not just that it was obvious that is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ actually stated on two occasions during his opening statement that he was addressing the media , once repeating a sentence and saying specifically that he was repeating it again because it was important that the media got it .
I am frankly astonished that Baraitser allowed this .
It is completely out of order for a counsel to address remarks not to the court but to the media , and there simply could not be any clearer evidence that this is a political show trial and that Baraitser is complicit in that .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the defence would have been pulled up extremely quickly had they started addressing remarks to the media .
Baraitser makes zero pretence of being anything other than in thrall to the Crown , and by extension to the US Government .
The points which Lewis wished the media to know were these : it is not true that mainstream outlets like the Guardian and New York Times are also threatened by the charges against Assange , because Assange was not charged with publishing the cables but only with publishing the names of informants @ @ @ @ @ @ @ him to attempt computer hacking .
Only Assange had done these things , not mainstream outlets .
Lewis then proceeded to read out a series of articles from the mainstream media attacking Assange , as evidence that the media and Assange were not in the same boat .
The entire opening hour consisted of the prosecution addressing the media , attempting to drive a clear wedge between the media and Wikileaks and thus aimed at reducing media support for Assange .
It was a political address , not remotely a legal submission .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ had prepared reams of copies of this section of Lewis ’ address , which were handed out to the media and given them electronically so they could cut and paste .
Following an adjournment , magistrate Baraitser questioned the prosecution on the veracity of some of these claims .
In particular , the claim that newspapers were not in the same position because Assange was charged not with publication , but with “ aiding and abetting ” Chelsea Manning in getting the material , did not seem consistent with Lewis ’ reading of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said that merely obtaining and publishing any government secret was an offence .
Surely , Baraitser suggested , that meant that newspapers just publishing the Manning leaks would be guilty of an offence ?
This appeared to catch Lewis entirely off guard .
The last thing he had expected was any perspicacity from Baraitser , whose job was just to do what he said .
Lewis hummed and hawed , put his glasses on and off several times , adjusted his microphone repeatedly and picked up a succession of pieces of paper from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to surprise him by its contents , as he waved them haplessly in the air and said he really should have cited the Shayler case but couldn ’ t find it .
It was liking watching Columbo with none of the charm and without the killer question at the end of the process .
Suddenly Lewis appeared to come to a decision .
Yes , he said much more firmly .
The 1989 Official Secrets Act had been introduced by the Thatcher Government after the Ponting Case , specifically to remove the public @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of an official secret a crime of strict liability – meaning no matter how you got it , publishing and even possessing made you guilty .
Therefore , under the principle of dual criminality , Assange was liable for extradition whether or not he had aided and abetted Manning .
Lewis then went on to add that any journalist and any publication that printed the official secret would therefore also be committing an offence , no matter how they had obtained it , and no matter if it did or did not name @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out contradicted his entire opening statement to the media stating that they need not worry as the Assange charges could never be applied to them .
And he did so straight after the adjournment , immediately after his team had handed out copies of the argument he had now just completely contradicted .
I can not think it has often happened in court that a senior lawyer has proven himself so absolutely and so immediately to be an unmitigated and ill-motivated liar .
This was undoubtedly the most breathtaking moment in today ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can not find any mention anywhere in the mainstream media that this happened at all .
What I can find , everywhere , is the mainstream media reporting , via cut and paste , Lewis ’ s first part of his statement on why the prosecution of Assange is not a threat to press freedom ; but nobody seems to have reported that he totally abandoned his own argument five minutes later .
Were the journalists too stupid to understand the exchanges ?
The explanation is very simple .
The clarification coming from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is no printed or electronic record of Lewis ’ reply .
His original statement was provided in cut and paste format to the media .
His contradiction of it would require a journalist to listen to what was said in court , understand it and write it down .
There is no significant percentage of mainstream media journalists who command that elementary ability nowadays .
“ Journalism ” consists of cut and paste of approved sources only .
Lewis could have stabbed Assange to death in the courtroom , and it would not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ press release .
I was left uncertain of Baraitser ’ s purpose in this .
Plainly she discomfited Lewis very badly on this point , and appeared rather to enjoy doing so .
On the other hand the point she made is not necessarily helpful to the defence .
What she was saying was essentially that Julian could be extradited under dual criminality , from the UK point of view , just for publishing , whether or not he conspired with Chelsea Manning , and that all the journalists who published could be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a point so extreme that it would be bound to be invalid under the Human Rights Act ?
Was she pushing Lewis to articulate a position so extreme as to be untenable – giving him enough rope to hang himself – or was she slavering at the prospect of not just extraditing Assange , but of mass prosecutions of journalists ?
The reaction of one group was very interesting .
The four US government lawyers seated immediately behind Lewis had the grace to look very uncomfortable indeed as Lewis baldly declared that any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ publishing or even possessing any government secret was committing a serious offence .
Their entire strategy had been to pretend not to be saying that .
Lewis then moved on to conclude the prosecution ’ s arguments .
The court had no decision to make , he stated .
Assange must be extradited .
The offence met the test of dual criminality as it was an offence both in the USA and UK .
UK extradition law specifically barred the court from testing whether there was any evidence to back up the charges @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the defence argued , abuse of process , the court must still extradite and then the court must pursue the abuse of process as a separate matter against the abusers .
( This is a particularly specious argument as it is not possible for the court to take action against the US government due to sovereign immunity , as Lewis well knows ) .
Finally , Lewis stated that the Human Rights Act and freedom of speech were completely irrelevant in extradition proceedings .
Edward Fitzgerald then arose to make the opening statement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stating that the motive for the prosecution was entirely political , and that political offences were specifically excluded under article 4.1 of the UK/US extradition treaty .
He pointed out that at the time of the Chelsea Manning Trial and again in 2013 the Obama administration had taken specific decisions not to prosecute Assange for the Manning leaks .
This had been reversed by the Trump administration for reasons that were entirely political .
On abuse of process , Fitzgerald referred to evidence presented to the Spanish criminal courts that the CIA had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Julian Assange in the Embassy , and that this spying specifically included surveillance of Assange ’ s privileged meetings with his lawyers to discuss extradition .
For the state trying to extradite to spy on the defendant ’ s client-lawyer consultations is in itself grounds to dismiss the case .
( This point is undoubtedly true .
Any decent judge would throw the case out summarily for the outrageous spying on the defence lawyers ) .
Fitzgerald went on to say the defence would produce evidence the CIA not only spied on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ considered kidnapping or poisoning him , and that this showed there was no commitment to proper rule of law in this case .
Fitzgerald said that the prosecution ’ s framing of the case contained deliberate misrepresentation of the facts that also amounted to abuse of process .
It was not true that there was any evidence of harm to informants , and the US government had confirmed this in other fora , eg in Chelsea Manning ’ s trial .
There had been no conspiracy to hack computers , and Chelsea Manning @ @ @ @ @ @ @ court martial .
Lastly it was untrue that Wikileaks had initiated publication of unredacted names of informants , as other media organisations had been responsible for this first .
Again , so far as I can see , while the US allegation of harm to informants is widely reported , the defence ’ s total refutation on the facts and claim that the fabrication of facts amounts to abuse of process is not much reported at all .
Fitzgerald finally referred to US prison conditions , the impossibility of a fair trial in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump Administration has stated foreign nationals will not receive First Amendment protections , as reasons that extradition must be barred .
You can read the whole defence statement , but in my view the strongest passage was on why this is a political prosecution , and thus precluded from extradition .
For the purposes of section 81 ( a ) , I next have to deal with the question of how this politically motivated prosecution satisfies the test of being directed against Julian Assange because of his political opinions .
The essence of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prosecution are summarised in the reports of Professor Feldstein [ tab 18 ] , Professor Rogers [ tab 40 ] , Professor Noam Chomsky [ tab 39 ] and Professor Kopelman : - i .
He is a leading proponent of an open society and of freedom of expression .
ii .
He is anti-war and anti-imperialism .
iii .
He is a world-renowned champion of political transparency and of the public ’ s right to access information on issues of importance – issues such as political corruption , war crimes , torture @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 5.4.Those beliefs and those actions inevitably bring him into conflict with powerful states including the current US administration , for political reasons .
Which explains why he has been denounced as a terrorist and why President Trump has in the past called for the death penalty .
5.5.But I should add his revelations are far from confined to the wrongdoings of the US .
He has exposed surveillance by Russia ; and published exposes of Mr Assad in Syria ; and it is said that WikiLeaks revelations about corruption in Tunisia and torture @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Arab Spring itself .
5.6.The US say he is no journalist .
But you will see a full record of his work in Bundle M. He has been a member of the Australian journalists union since 2009 , he is a member of the NUJ and the European Federation of Journalists .
He has won numerous media awards including being honoured with the highest award for Australian journalists .
His work has been recognised by the Economist , Amnesty International and the Council of Europe .
He is the winner of the Martha @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the Nobel Peace Prize , including both last year and this year .
You can see from the materials that he has written books , articles and documentaries .
He has had articles published in the Guardian , the New York Times , the Washington Post and the New Statesman , just to name a few .
Some of the very publications for which his extradition is being sought have been refereed to and relied upon in Courts throughout the world , including the UK Supreme Court and the European Court of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has championed the cause of transparency and freedom of information throughout the world .
5.7.Professor Noam Chomsky puts it like this : – ‘ in courageously upholding political beliefs that most of profess to share he has performed an enormous service to all those in the world who treasure the values of freedom and democracy and who therefore demand the right to know what their elected representatives are doing ’ [ see tab 39 , paragraph 14 ] .
So Julian Assange ’ s positive impact on the world is undeniable .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ administration is equally undeniable .
The legal test for ‘ political opinions ’ 5.8.I am sure you are aware of the legal authorities on this issue : namely whether a request is made because of the defendant ’ s political opinions .
A broad approach has to be adopted when applying the test .
In support of this we rely on the case of Re Asliturk [ 2002 ] EWHC 2326 ( abuse authorities , tab 11 , at paras 25 – 26 ) which clearly establishes that such a wide approach should @ @ @ @ @ @ @ opinions .
And that will clearly cover Julian Assange ’ s ideological positions .
Moreover , we also rely on cases such as Emilia Gomez v SSHD [ 2000 ] INLR 549 at tab 43 of the political offence authorities bundle .
These show that the concept of “ political opinions ” extends to the political opinions imputed to the individual citizen by the state which prosecutes him .
For that reason the characterisation of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks as a “ non-state hostile intelligence agency ” by Mr Pompeo makes clear that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ political opinions .
All the experts whose reports you have show that Julian Assange has been targeted because of the political position imputed to him by the Trump administration – as an enemy of America who must be brought down .
Tomorrow the defence continue .
I am genuinely uncertain what will happen as I feel at the moment far too exhausted to be there at 6am to queue to get in .
But I hope somehow I will contrive another report tomorrow evening .
With grateful thanks to those who donated or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This article is entirely free to reproduce and publish , including in translation , and I very much hope people will do so actively .
Truth shall set us free .

Woolwich Crown Court is designed to impose the power of the state. Normal courts in this country are public buildings, deliberately placed by our ancestors right in the centre of towns, almost always just up a few steps from a main street. The major purpose of their positioning and of their architecture was to facilitate public access in the belief that it is vital that justice can be seen by the public.
Woolwich Crown Court, which hosts Belmarsh Magistrates Court, is built on totally the opposite principle. It is designed with no other purpose than to exclude the public. Attached to a prison on a windswept marsh far from any normal social centre, an island accessible only through navigating a maze of dual carriageways, the entire location and architecture of the building is predicated on preventing public access. It is surrounded by a continuation of the same extremely heavy duty steel paling barrier that surrounds the prison. It is the most extraordinary thing, a courthouse which is a part of the prison system itself, a place where you are already considered guilty and in jail on arrival. Woolwich Crown Court is nothing but the physical negation of the presumption of innocence, the very incarnation of injustice in unyielding steel, concrete and armoured glass. It has precisely the same relationship to the administration of justice as Guantanamo Bay or the Lubyanka. It is in truth just the sentencing wing of Belmarsh prison.
When enquiring about facilities for the public to attend the hearing, an Assange activist was told by a member of court staff that we should realise that Woolwich is a “counter-terrorism court”. That is true de facto, but in truth a “counter-terrorism court” is an institution unknown to the UK constitution. Indeed, if a single day at Woolwich Crown Court does not convince you the existence of liberal democracy is now a lie, then your mind must be very closed indeed.
Extradition hearings are not held at Belmarsh Magistrates Court inside Woolwich Crown Court. They are always held at Westminster Magistrates Court as the application is deemed to be delivered to the government at Westminster. Now get your head around this. This hearing is at Westminster Magistrates Court. It is being held by the Westminster magistrates and Westminster court staff, but located at Belmarsh Magistrates Court inside Woolwich Crown Court. All of which weird convolution is precisely so they can use the “counter-terrorist court” to limit public access and to impose the fear of the power of the state.
One consequence is that, in the courtroom itself, Julian Assange is confined at the back of the court behind a bulletproof glass screen. He made the point several times during proceedings that this makes it very difficult for him to see and hear the proceedings. The magistrate, Vanessa Baraitser, chose to interpret this with studied dishonesty as a problem caused by the very faint noise of demonstrators outside, as opposed to a problem caused by Assange being locked away from the court in a massive bulletproof glass box.
Now there is no reason at all for Assange to be in that box, designed to restrain extremely physically violent terrorists. He could sit, as a defendant at a hearing normally would, in the body of the court with his lawyers. But the cowardly and vicious Baraitser has refused repeated and persistent requests from the defence for Assange to be allowed to sit with his lawyers. Baraitser of course is but a puppet, being supervised by Chief Magistrate Lady Arbuthnot, a woman so enmeshed in the defence and security service establishment I can conceive of no way in which her involvement in this case could be more corrupt.
It does not matter to Baraitser or Arbuthnot if there is any genuine need for Assange to be incarcerated in a bulletproof box, or whether it stops him from following proceedings in court. Baraitser’s intention is to humiliate Assange, and to instill in the rest of us horror at the vast crushing power of the state. The inexorable strength of the sentencing wing of the nightmarish Belmarsh Prison must be maintained. If you are here, you are guilty.
It’s the Lubyanka. You may only be a remand prisoner. This may only be a hearing not a trial. You may have no history of violence and not be accused of any violence. You may have three of the country’s most eminent psychiatrists submitting reports of your history of severe clinical depression and warning of suicide. But I, Vanessa Baraitser, am still going to lock you up in a box designed for the most violent of terrorists. To show what we can do to dissidents. And if you can’t then follow court proceedings, all the better.
You will perhaps better accept what I say about the Court when I tell you that, for a hearing being followed all round the world, they have brought it to a courtroom which had a total number of sixteen seats available to members of the public. 16. To make sure I got one of those 16 and could be your man in the gallery, I was outside that great locked iron fence queuing in the cold, wet and wind from 6am. At 8am the gate was unlocked, and I was able to walk inside the fence to another queue before the doors of the courtroom, where despite the fact notices clearly state the court opens to the public at 8am, I had to queue outside the building again for another hour and forty minutes. Then I was processed through armoured airlock doors, through airport type security, and had to queue behind two further locked doors, before finally getting to my seat just as the court started at 10am. By which stage the intention was we should have been thoroughly cowed and intimidated, not to mention drenched and potentially hypothermic.
There was a separate media entrance and a media room with live transmission from the courtroom, and there were so many scores of media I thought I could relax and not worry as the basic facts would be widely reported. In fact, I could not have been more wrong. I followed the arguments very clearly every minute of the day, and not a single one of the most important facts and arguments today has been reported anywhere in the mainstream media. That is a bold claim, but I fear it is perfectly true. So I have much work to do to let the world know what actually happened. The mere act of being an honest witness is suddenly extremely important, when the entire media has abandoned that role.
James Lewis QC made the opening statement for the prosecution. It consisted of two parts, both equally extraordinary. The first and longest part was truly remarkable for containing no legal argument, and for being addressed not to the magistrate but to the media. It is not just that it was obvious that is where his remarks were aimed, he actually stated on two occasions during his opening statement that he was addressing the media, once repeating a sentence and saying specifically that he was repeating it again because it was important that the media got it.
I am frankly astonished that Baraitser allowed this. It is completely out of order for a counsel to address remarks not to the court but to the media, and there simply could not be any clearer evidence that this is a political show trial and that Baraitser is complicit in that. I have not the slightest doubt that the defence would have been pulled up extremely quickly had they started addressing remarks to the media. Baraitser makes zero pretence of being anything other than in thrall to the Crown, and by extension to the US Government.
The points which Lewis wished the media to know were these: it is not true that mainstream outlets like the Guardian and New York Times are also threatened by the charges against Assange, because Assange was not charged with publishing the cables but only with publishing the names of informants, and with cultivating Manning and assisting him to attempt computer hacking. Only Assange had done these things, not mainstream outlets.
Lewis then proceeded to read out a series of articles from the mainstream media attacking Assange, as evidence that the media and Assange were not in the same boat. The entire opening hour consisted of the prosecution addressing the media, attempting to drive a clear wedge between the media and Wikileaks and thus aimed at reducing media support for Assange. It was a political address, not remotely a legal submission. At the same time, the prosecution had prepared reams of copies of this section of Lewis’ address, which were handed out to the media and given them electronically so they could cut and paste.
Following an adjournment, magistrate Baraitser questioned the prosecution on the veracity of some of these claims. In particular, the claim that newspapers were not in the same position because Assange was charged not with publication, but with “aiding and abetting” Chelsea Manning in getting the material, did not seem consistent with Lewis’ reading of the 1989 Official Secrets Act, which said that merely obtaining and publishing any government secret was an offence. Surely, Baraitser suggested, that meant that newspapers just publishing the Manning leaks would be guilty of an offence?
This appeared to catch Lewis entirely off guard. The last thing he had expected was any perspicacity from Baraitser, whose job was just to do what he said. Lewis hummed and hawed, put his glasses on and off several times, adjusted his microphone repeatedly and picked up a succession of pieces of paper from his brief, each of which appeared to surprise him by its contents, as he waved them haplessly in the air and said he really should have cited the Shayler case but couldn’t find it. It was liking watching Columbo with none of the charm and without the killer question at the end of the process.
Suddenly Lewis appeared to come to a decision. Yes, he said much more firmly. The 1989 Official Secrets Act had been introduced by the Thatcher Government after the Ponting Case, specifically to remove the public interest defence and to make unauthorised possession of an official secret a crime of strict liability – meaning no matter how you got it, publishing and even possessing made you guilty. Therefore, under the principle of dual criminality, Assange was liable for extradition whether or not he had aided and abetted Manning. Lewis then went on to add that any journalist and any publication that printed the official secret would therefore also be committing an offence, no matter how they had obtained it, and no matter if it did or did not name informants.
Lewis had thus just flat out contradicted his entire opening statement to the media stating that they need not worry as the Assange charges could never be applied to them. And he did so straight after the adjournment, immediately after his team had handed out copies of the argument he had now just completely contradicted. I cannot think it has often happened in court that a senior lawyer has proven himself so absolutely and so immediately to be an unmitigated and ill-motivated liar. This was undoubtedly the most breathtaking moment in today’s court hearing.
Yet remarkably I cannot find any mention anywhere in the mainstream media that this happened at all. What I can find, everywhere, is the mainstream media reporting, via cut and paste, Lewis’s first part of his statement on why the prosecution of Assange is not a threat to press freedom; but nobody seems to have reported that he totally abandoned his own argument five minutes later. Were the journalists too stupid to understand the exchanges?
The explanation is very simple. The clarification coming from a question Baraitser asked Lewis, there is no printed or electronic record of Lewis’ reply. His original statement was provided in cut and paste format to the media. His contradiction of it would require a journalist to listen to what was said in court, understand it and write it down. There is no significant percentage of mainstream media journalists who command that elementary ability nowadays. “Journalism” consists of cut and paste of approved sources only. Lewis could have stabbed Assange to death in the courtroom, and it would not be reported unless contained in a government press release.
I was left uncertain of Baraitser’s purpose in this. Plainly she discomfited Lewis very badly on this point, and appeared rather to enjoy doing so. On the other hand the point she made is not necessarily helpful to the defence. What she was saying was essentially that Julian could be extradited under dual criminality, from the UK point of view, just for publishing, whether or not he conspired with Chelsea Manning, and that all the journalists who published could be charged too. But surely this is a point so extreme that it would be bound to be invalid under the Human Rights Act? Was she pushing Lewis to articulate a position so extreme as to be untenable – giving him enough rope to hang himself – or was she slavering at the prospect of not just extraditing Assange, but of mass prosecutions of journalists?
The reaction of one group was very interesting. The four US government lawyers seated immediately behind Lewis had the grace to look very uncomfortable indeed as Lewis baldly declared that any journalist and any newspaper or broadcast media publishing or even possessing any government secret was committing a serious offence. Their entire strategy had been to pretend not to be saying that.
Lewis then moved on to conclude the prosecution’s arguments. The court had no decision to make, he stated. Assange must be extradited. The offence met the test of dual criminality as it was an offence both in the USA and UK. UK extradition law specifically barred the court from testing whether there was any evidence to back up the charges. If there had been, as the defence argued, abuse of process, the court must still extradite and then the court must pursue the abuse of process as a separate matter against the abusers. (This is a particularly specious argument as it is not possible for the court to take action against the US government due to sovereign immunity, as Lewis well knows). Finally, Lewis stated that the Human Rights Act and freedom of speech were completely irrelevant in extradition proceedings.
Edward Fitzgerald then arose to make the opening statement for the defence. He started by stating that the motive for the prosecution was entirely political, and that political offences were specifically excluded under article 4.1 of the UK/US extradition treaty. He pointed out that at the time of the Chelsea Manning Trial and again in 2013 the Obama administration had taken specific decisions not to prosecute Assange for the Manning leaks. This had been reversed by the Trump administration for reasons that were entirely political.
On abuse of process, Fitzgerald referred to evidence presented to the Spanish criminal courts that the CIA had commissioned a Spanish security company to spy on Julian Assange in the Embassy, and that this spying specifically included surveillance of Assange’s privileged meetings with his lawyers to discuss extradition. For the state trying to extradite to spy on the defendant’s client-lawyer consultations is in itself grounds to dismiss the case. (This point is undoubtedly true. Any decent judge would throw the case out summarily for the outrageous spying on the defence lawyers).
Fitzgerald went on to say the defence would produce evidence the CIA not only spied on Assange and his lawyers, but actively considered kidnapping or poisoning him, and that this showed there was no commitment to proper rule of law in this case.
Fitzgerald said that the prosecution’s framing of the case contained deliberate misrepresentation of the facts that also amounted to abuse of process. It was not true that there was any evidence of harm to informants, and the US government had confirmed this in other fora, eg in Chelsea Manning’s trial. There had been no conspiracy to hack computers, and Chelsea Manning had been acquitted on that charge at court martial. Lastly it was untrue that Wikileaks had initiated publication of unredacted names of informants, as other media organisations had been responsible for this first.
Again, so far as I can see, while the US allegation of harm to informants is widely reported, the defence’s total refutation on the facts and claim that the fabrication of facts amounts to abuse of process is not much reported at all. Fitzgerald finally referred to US prison conditions, the impossibility of a fair trial in the US, and the fact the Trump Administration has stated foreign nationals will not receive First Amendment protections, as reasons that extradition must be barred. You can read the whole defence statement, but in my view the strongest passage was on why this is a political prosecution, and thus precluded from extradition.
For the purposes of section 81(a), I next have to deal with the question of how
this politically motivated prosecution satisfies the test of being directed against
Julian Assange because of his political opinions. The essence of his political
opinions which have provoked this prosecution are summarised in the reports
of Professor Feldstein [tab 18], Professor Rogers [tab 40], Professor Noam
Chomsky [tab 39] and Professor Kopelman:-
i. He is a leading proponent of an open society and of freedom of expression.
ii. He is anti-war and anti-imperialism.
iii. He is a world-renowned champion of political transparency and of the
public’s right to access information on issues of importance – issues such
as political corruption, war crimes, torture and the mistreatment of
Guantanamo detainees.
5.4.Those beliefs and those actions inevitably bring him into conflict with powerful
states including the current US administration, for political reasons. Which
explains why he has been denounced as a terrorist and why President Trump
has in the past called for the death penalty.
5.5.But I should add his revelations are far from confined to the wrongdoings of
the US. He has exposed surveillance by Russia; and published exposes of Mr
Assad in Syria; and it is said that WikiLeaks revelations about corruption in
Tunisia and torture in Egypt were the catalyst for the Arab Spring itself.
5.6.The US say he is no journalist. But you will see a full record of his work in
Bundle M. He has been a member of the Australian journalists union since
2009, he is a member of the NUJ and the European Federation of Journalists.
He has won numerous media awards including being honoured with the
highest award for Australian journalists. His work has been recognised by the
Economist, Amnesty International and the Council of Europe. He is the winner
of the Martha Gelhorn prize and has been repeatedly nominated for the Nobel
Peace Prize, including both last year and this year. You can see from the
materials that he has written books, articles and documentaries. He has had
articles published in the Guardian, the New York Times, the Washington Post
and the New Statesman, just to name a few. Some of the very publications for
which his extradition is being sought have been refereed to and relied upon in
Courts throughout the world, including the UK Supreme Court and the
European Court of Human Rights. In short, he has championed the cause of
transparency and freedom of information throughout the world.
5.7.Professor Noam Chomsky puts it like this: – ‘in courageously upholding
political beliefs that most of profess to share he has performed an
enormous service to all those in the world who treasure the values of
freedom and democracy and who therefore demand the right to know
what their elected representatives are doing’ [see tab 39, paragraph 14].
So Julian Assange’s positive impact on the world is undeniable. The hostility
it has provoked from the Trump administration is equally undeniable.
The legal test for ‘political opinions’
5.8.I am sure you are aware of the legal authorities on this issue: namely whether
a request is made because of the defendant’s political opinions. A broad
approach has to be adopted when applying the test. In support of this we rely
on the case of Re Asliturk [2002] EWHC 2326 (abuse authorities, tab 11, at
paras 25 – 26) which clearly establishes that such a wide approach should be
adopted to the concept of political opinions. And that will clearly cover Julian
Assange’s ideological positions. Moreover, we also rely on cases such as
Emilia Gomez v SSHD [2000] INLR 549 at tab 43 of the political offence
authorities bundle. These show that the concept of “political opinions” extends
to the political opinions imputed to the individual citizen by the state which
prosecutes him. For that reason the characterisation of Julian Assange and
WikiLeaks as a “non-state hostile intelligence agency” by Mr Pompeo makes
clear that he has been targeted for his imputed political opinions. All the
experts whose reports you have show that Julian Assange has been targeted
because of the political position imputed to him by the Trump administration –
as an enemy of America who must be brought down.
Tomorrow the defence continue. I am genuinely uncertain what will happen as I feel at the moment far too exhausted to be there at 6am to queue to get in. But I hope somehow I will contrive another report tomorrow evening.
With grateful thanks to those who donated or subscribed to make this reporting possible.
This article is entirely free to reproduce and publish, including in translation, and I very much hope people will do so actively. Truth shall set us free.