Biden Casts 3rd UN Veto Allowing Israeli Genocide in Gaza To Continue
by Walt Zlotow , https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2024/02/21/biden-casts-3rd-un-veto-allowing-israeli-genocide-in-gaza-to-continue/
No surprise President Biden cast his third veto in the UN Security Council to prevent a full, permanent ceasefire in Gaza. Biden’s depraved support of Israeli genocide in Gaza has no limits. Over 25,000 tons of US weapons have contributed to over 100,000 deaths and injuries, displacement of nearly 2,000,000 Palestinians and destruction of nearly all medical, educational and cultural institutions. The appropriate word for all that? Genocide.
President Biden ludicrously claims his veto was cast because it interfered with the US ceasefire plan and efforts to get aid to beleaguered Palestinians. Biden’s first reason is ghoulish. His plan calls for a temporary ceasefire to get all the hostages out, after which Israeli ethnic cleansing, with unlimited US aid, can resume till complete. His second reason is preposterous The UN accurately states Israel blocks virtually all aid from reaching sick, starving and wounded Palestinians.
President Biden may not be in mental and physical decline severe enough to prevent his functioning as president. But his enabling of Israel’s genocidal ethnic cleansing of Gaza for 5 months now, makes Biden’s moral decline a disqualifier for further serving as president.
Walt Zlotow became involved in antiwar activities upon entering University of Chicago in 1963. He is current president of the West Suburban Peace Coalition based in the Chicago western suburbs. He blogs daily on antiwar and other issues at www.heartlandprogressive.blogspot.com.
Julian Assange judge previously acted for MI6
The judge set to rule on the Assange extradition case was previously paid to represent the interests of MI6 and the Ministry of Defence – whose activities WikiLeaks has exposed.
MARK CURTIS AND JOHN MCEVOY, 19 FEBRUARY 2024
One of the two High Court judges who will rule on Julian Assange’s bid to stop his extradition to the US represented the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and the Ministry of Defence, Declassified has found.
Justice Jeremy Johnson has also been a specially vetted barrister, cleared by the UK authorities to access top secret information.
Johnson will sit with Dame Victoria Sharp, his senior judge, to decide the fate of the WikiLeaks co-founder. If extradited, Assange faces a maximum sentence of 175 years.
His persecution by the US authorities has been at the behest of Washington’s intelligence and security services, with whom the UK has deep relations.
His persecution by the US authorities has been at the behest of Washington’s intelligence and security services, with whom the UK has deep relations.
Assange’s journalistic career has been marked by exposing the dirty secrets of the US and UK national security establishments. He now faces a judge who has acted for, and received security clearance from, some of those same state agencies.
As with previous judges who have ruled on Assange’s case, this raises concerns about institutional conflicts of interest.
Exactly how much Johnson has been paid for his work for government departments is not clear. Records show he was paid twice by the Government Legal Department for his services in 2018. The sum was over £55,000.
Briefed by MI6
Justice Johnson became a deputy High Court judge in 2016 and a full judge in 2019. His biography states he has been “often acting in cases involving the police and government departments”.
As a barrister, in 2007 he represented MI6 as an observer during the inquests into the deaths of Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed.
Johnson worked alongside Robin Tam QC, previously described by legal directories as a barrister who “does an enormous amount of often sensitive work” for the UK government…………………………………………………….
Defending the ministry
Johnson has also represented the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) on at least two occasions.
In 2013, he acted for the department during the high-profile Al-Sweady inquiry, which looked into allegations that “British soldiers torture and unlawfully killed Iraqi prisoners” in 2004.
The MoD’s lawyers said the Iraqi allegations were a “product of lies” and that those making the claims “were guilty of a criminal conspiracy”.
Johnson argued there was “compelling and extensive and independent forensic evidence” to refute the case. The five-year inquiry, which cost around £25m, exonerated the British troops.
Johnson also acted for the MoD in 2011, in an appeal case against Shaun Wood, a Royal Air Force (RAF) serviceman. ………………………….
‘Highest security clearance’
Johnson was appointed by the Attorney General to be a “special advocate” in around 2007, Declassified understands. These are specially vetted barristers who act for the purpose of hearing secret evidence in a closed court.
Special advocates “must undergo and obtain Developed Vetting (the highest level of HM Government security clearance) prior to their appointment”, government guidance states.
Developed Vetting is required for individuals having “frequent and uncontrolled access to TOP SECRET assets or require any access to TOP SECRET codeword material”. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. https://www.declassifieduk.org/julian-assange-judge-previously-acted-for-mi6/
TODAY. How the USA betrays and disdains its allies – the case of Julian Assange.
Right now, USA leaders are bewailing and admiring Alexei Navalny – the courageous Russian who stood up to Putin, and paid the ultimate price for publicly exposing the government’s crimes .
The hypocrisy of Joe Biden and the rest of these phony U.S. “patriots” – too cowardly to face up to the truth, – to accept that their great “exceptional” nation could have done some wrong things! Like the Russian government, you get rid of, you kill, the person who exposed your wrongdoing.
Only the Russians do it quickly, without finesse.
The American government constructs an elaborate legal justification, and, with the sycophantic support of the British government, a long-drawn out procedure of torture – over many years – punishing the truth-speaker – the Australian citizen Julian Assange – in the name of “justice”.
Julian Assange is not an American citizen. He was not an official of the USA government. He did not hack into U.S. government computers to discover classified documents. Yet Assange is charged with this computer misuse, and espionage of classified documents! With violating 17 counts of the 1917 Espionage Act, with a potential sentence of 170 years!
What Assange did was to do what journalists do – publish information given to him by a source (- Chelsea Manning). The New York Times, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel also published this information. Why are their editors and journalists not also being charged with espionage?
Assange revealed crimes – massacres of civilians, torture, assassinations, the list of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay and the conditions they were subjected to, as well as the Rules of Engagement in Iraq, helicopter pilots who gunned down two Reuters journalists and 10 other civilians and severely injured two children. These perpetrators have never been charged. with anything.
Apart from the intrinsic injustice of the claims against Assange, there has been a whole series of illegal and very questionable actions against him. Some examples – the surveillance of Assange and his lawyers by a Spanish firm, while he was in the Ecuadorian Embassy, Ecuador’s rescinding Julian’s asylum status allowing police in, the UK court’s acceptance of the claim that Assange is “not a journalist”. A key witness admitted to fabricating the accusations against him. The CIA made plans for kidnapping and assassinating him.
Julian was convicted of breaching his bail conditions. The punishment? Almost 5 years in solitary confinement in maximum security Belmarsh prison. Belmarsh is for Category A prisoners, those who “pose the most threat to the public, the police or national security” and stand accused of terrorism, murder, or sexual violence.
Article 4 of the Extradition Treaty between USA and UK prohibits extradition for political offenses. Why has this been ignored in the drive to send Assange to trial in the USA?
It is likely that the British court will continue the British kow-towing to America.
As for Australia – the Australian Parliament, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, actually now have put their heads above the parapet, and called on the USA to release Assange. A bit of courage on their part – not seen since the days of Gough Whitlam (who was severely punished for attempting to stand up to the USA.)
But it matters little – what Australia wants for its citizen Assange. Australia has signed up for the nuclear submarine boondoggle, and for plastering U.S. military bases around the nation, and for being ready to join in attacking China whenever asked to.
Right now, Australia IS making some feeble attempts to separate itself from Joe Biden’s fealty to Israel, and even from castigating China. These will be disregarded by the mighty USA.
“Friendship’ with the USA is entirely one way, and Assange awaits his ultimate persecution.
An Open Letter from Editors and Publishers: Publishing is Not a Crime
The following is a letter from The New York Times, the Guardian, Le Monde, El Pais and DER SPIEGEL urging the U.S. government to end its prosecution of Julian Assange for publishing secrets.
By The New York Times, the Guardian, Le Monde, El Pais and DER SPIEGEL, https://scheerpost.com/2024/02/18/an-open-letter-from-editors-and-publishers-publishing-is-not-a-crime/
Twelve years ago, on November 28th 2010, our five international media outlets – The New York Times, the Guardian, Le Monde, El Pais and DER SPIEGEL – published a series of revelations in cooperation with Wikileaks that made the headlines around the globe.
“Cable gate”, a set of 251,000 confidential cables from the US State Department disclosed corruption, diplomatic scandals and spy affairs on an international scale.
In the words of The New York Times, the documents told “the unvarnished story of how the government makes its biggest decisions, the decisions that cost the country most heavily in lives and money”. Even now in 2022, journalists and historians continue to publish new revelations, using the unique trove of documents.
For Julian Assange, publisher of Wikileaks, the publication of “Cable gate” and several other related leaks had the most severe consequences. On April 11th, 2019, Assange was arrested in London on a US arrest warrant, and has now been held for three and a half years in a high security British prison usually used for terrorists and members of organized crime groups. He faces extradition to the US and a sentence of up to 175 years in an American maximum security prison.
This group of editors and publishers, all of whom had worked with Assange, felt the need to publicly criticize his conduct in 2011 when unredacted copies of the cables were released, and some of us are concerned about the allegations in the indictment that he attempted to aid in computer intrusion of a classified database. But we come together now to express our grave concerns about the continued prosecution of Julian Assange for obtaining and publishing classified materials.
The Obama-Biden Administration, in office during the Wikileaks publication in 2010, refrained from indicting Assange, explaining that they would have had to indict journalists from major news outlets too. Their position placed a premium on press freedom, despite its uncomfortable consequences. Under Donald Trump however, the position changed. The DOJ relied on an old law, the Espionage Act of 1917 (designed to prosecute potential spies during World War 1), which has never been used to prosecute a publisher or broadcaster.
This indictment sets a dangerous precedent, and threatens to undermine America’s First Amendment and the freedom of the press.
Holding governments accountable is part of the core mission of a free press in a democracy.
Obtaining and disclosing sensitive information when necessary in the public interest is a core part of the daily work of journalists. If that work is criminalised, our public discourse and our democracies are made significantly weaker.
Twelve years after the publication of “Cable gate”, it is time for the U.S. government to end its prosecution of Julian Assange for publishing secrets.
Publishing is not a crime.
The editors and publishers of:
- The New York Times
- The Guardian
- Le Monde
- DER SPIEGEL
- El Pais
For Biden, ending Israel’s mass murder in Gaza is a ‘non-starter’
As Palestinians face mass starvation and new ethnic cleansing in Rafah, the White House rejects even token humanitarian gestures.
AARON MATÉ, FEB 20, 2024
At the White House last week, President Biden claimed to have concerns about Israeli plans for a ground invasion of Rafah, the southern Gaza area where more than one million Palestinians have fled. In the process, he committed a gaffe that revealed his actual stance.
“Our military operation in Rafah,” Biden began, before correcting himself. “Their — the major military operation in Rafah should not proceed without a credible plan… for ensuring the safety and support of more than one million people sheltering there. They need to be protected.”
Although unintentional, Biden was accurate to refer to an Israeli military operation in Gaza in the possessive form. Every Israeli atrocity in Gaza is committed with US support. Accordingly, within 24 hours, the White House made clear that despite Biden’s words of caution, only Israel’s mass murder campaign will remain protected.
According to three US officials, the Biden administration “is not planning to punish Israel if it launches a military campaign in Rafah without ensuring civilian safety,” Politico reports. Therefore, “no reprimand plans are in the works, meaning Israeli forces could enter the city and harm civilians without facing American consequences.” In another likely sign that Biden supports an Israeli assault, its allied regime in Egypt – a US client state — is now building an 8-square-mile walled enclosure that would cage fleeing refugees on its side of the Rafah border.
Biden’s spokespeople have also relayed that Israel has his green light to harm Rafah’s civilians.
“We’re going to continue to support Israel,” John Kirby said at the White House. “And we’re going to continue to make sure they have the tools and the capabilities to do that.” Asked directly if the US would punish Israel if it attacked Rafah without the Biden-demanded “credible plan” for civilian safety, Kirby responded: “I’m not going to get into a hypothetical game.”
To supply Israel with the proper “tools,” the US is rushing a new shipment of at least 1,000 bombs and related munitions. According to US intelligence officials, Israel has used about half the 21,000 bombs supplied by the US since the Oct. 7th attack. Israel’s remaining stockpile would be enough for 19 more weeks — but just days if war breaks out with Hezbollah on the northern border.
Israel’s dependence on US weaponry gives the White House instrumental leverage to impose conditions on its conduct – including demanding an end to the Gaza assault. But instead of using that influence, this latest transfer is part of “a broader effort by the Biden administration to speed the flow of weapons to Israel,” the Wall Street Journal observes…………………………………………………………………………………………….. more https://www.aaronmate.net/p/for-biden-ending-israels-mass-murder?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=100118&post_id=141822384&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&utm_medium=email
The odds of China using nuclear war to resolve the Taiwan issue
By John F. CopperFeb 20, 2024, https://johnmenadue.com/the-odds-of-china-using-nuclear-war-to-resolve-the-taiwan-issue-u-s-expert-versus-taiwan-experts/
Recently the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a thinktank in Washington, DC, did a survey asking U.S. and Taiwan Experts if China might use nuclear weapons in a conflict with or over Taiwan. The results were astonishing to most who read the study. Almost half of U.S. experts reported they thought China would. Only one quarter that number of Taiwan experts, 11 percent, so opined.
Different histories and variances in views of the world order explain this.
The US view
The United States was born out of war in the late 1700s. Americans call it a revolutionary war or a war of independence. It was the latter. (Social classes did not change.)
Growing from a small country on the East Coast to a two-ocean nation in a century was built on wars with the indigenous people (American Indians) that were reduced from 100 percent of the population to 2 percent today. The wars were vicious, including the use of germ weapons and deliberately starving the enemy. Essentially wars of annihilation.
In the late 1800s the Indians were defeated marked by a victory (some called a massacre) in the Battle of Wounded Knee. Thenceforth the U.S. became an external expansionist power: incorporating Hawaii, defeating Spain to colonise the Philippines, and taking some other Pacific Islands.
World War I and II enhanced America’s world power status: from being an important nation to being a preeminent world power (superpower). In 1991, the U.S. defeated the Soviet Union, the only other superpower, with an arms race that America won—to become the world’s sole superpower.
Four years ago, former President Jimmy Carter noted America had been at peace only 16 of the last 242 years and concluded the U.S. was the most warlike nation in history. By contrast, China had not been at war in the last 40 years.
Meanwhile, after World War II the U.S. built a new world order employing its superior national power and its view of what the world should be –a world of global trade and economic growth and dragooned democracy. It worked well for a while.
But America became overstretched from its role as a military giant, and in some ways soft or at least tired of its global responsibilities. After the fall of the Soviet Union, it was not ready to lead a unipolar world.
More important, it faced a growing challenge. Mao, China’s great leader, died in 1976 and two years later Deng Xiaoping reconstructed China, getting rid of Mao’s radical communism and replacing it with free-market capitalism, trade and a system that built on China’s education tradition. China boomed economically.
It even grew during the world recession of 2008 and the subsequent almost slowest U.S. recovery in recent history. China became the number one nation in the world economically based on purchasing power. It led the word in steel production and other measures of big power status. In made the UN’s poverty eradication project work by helping developing countries grow with its formidable Belt and Road Initiative that was heading toward spending a trillion dollars compared to America’s biggest, the Marshall Plan (costing a bit over 100 billion in today’s dollars). Meanwhile, China passed the U.S. in registering patents and publishing academic articles while building modern airports and fast trains (more than the rest of the world combined while American had none).
President Trump met the China challenge with a make America great again policy. He sought to bring important industries back and restore U.S. capitalism. However, he faced virtually impossible hurdles to do this: an inflated and powerful government bureaucracy, too many lawyers that impeded business, horribly expensive penal and welfare systems, high taxes and a burdensome debt. Plus, the intelligence agencies and the federal police (FBI), the mainstream media, and American academe all opposed him while the Democratic Party that was bigger than his party had more money.
President Biden sought to destroy Trump’s America. As a globalist he advocated the idea of the US as an exceptional country and a superpower. America was to be a nation organising a bloc of democracies facing off against the China-led authoritarian nations. But this failed. America’s democracy appeared to many to have evolved into partisan rule by the deep state. Europeans did not want to be led by the U.S. Europe and Japan did not wish to end important economic ties with China. The Biden administration engaged in a financial and technology war with China, which hurt the U.S. more than China. The developing countries of the world continued to admire China for its aid and investments.
Good luck competing with China…
Meanwhile, pundits were taken by an idea expressed in the ancient book by Thucydides, The Peloponnesian Wars, that competition and eventually war between a status quo power (Sparta) and a rising power (Athens) was the model for most major wars after that. The relationship between America and China fit the model well. Thus, war was coming.
Provoking a war by demonising China as an expansionist power and an abuser of human rights meant that the U.S. should to go to war soon—before China, experiencing a renaissance and rising in national power, might defeat the U.S. that was experiencing decline.
The Taiwanese view
Taiwan has a very different history and view of the world from America. It early on grew up in isolation. Then it was exposed to the world outside via trade handled by its merchants, pirates, and outsiders. Chinese migrated to Taiwan and subdued the indigenous population reducing it to 2 percent of residents as happened in America; but this did not make Taiwan a world power.
Instead, Taiwan was ruled by Westerners (the Netherlands) for a brief time that improved its economy and more. For two centuries it was then ruled by China that did not have much interest in Taiwan and eventually abandoned it. Forthwith, Taiwan became a colony of Japan, during which time it saw economic modernisation without political choice or democracy.
Then the United States defeated Japan in war and returned Taiwan to China according to wartime agreements made at Potsdam and Tehran. Taiwan was not given any choice in the matter.
But China was at war with itself–a civil war between Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists and Mao Tse-tung’s Communists. Four years later Chiang lost and retreated to Taiwan to regroup. Again, Taiwan had no voice.
Owing to the Korean War the United States viewed Mao as a confederate of the Soviet Union and therefore an enemy. America gave aid and protection to Chiang’s Republic of China based on Taiwan. But the U.S. did not want a war with China allied with the Soviet Union and the result was a stalemate.
Chiang shifted his attention to Taiwan’s economic development and succeeded beyond almost anyone’s expectations. Its gross national product grew at a pace that far exceeded Western countries or Japan at their halcyon growth days.
Peace made this possible. Economic growth produced prosperity. Prosperity begat a middle class. A middle class serve to create political change and democracy.
Taiwan became a model for economic development and political change. Something similar happened in China under Deng: a booming economy and some political liberalisation. China and Taiwan linked up with trade and investments such that it made for mutual understanding and the avoidance of war, the same conditions that made the European Community work.
Strategically, Taiwan aligned with the United States against China in the Cold War. Like before it had no choice. But it avoided developing a nuclear weapon believing Chinese leaders when they said they would not use its nukes against Taiwan as they would not consider killing their own people.
Taiwan believed this because China did not engage in a nuclear arms race with America even though in the last two or three decades it could afford to do so. China sought to deal with Taiwan with its economic prowess, though it pulled its punches in using pressure and Taiwan knew it.
Taiwan’s residents’ national identity made it favour its sovereignty and separation from China or independence. Yet they knew this was contingent on America’s protection, regarding which they had some doubts.
Washington’s policy was that there was one China and Taiwan was part of China. President Biden restated this in the presence of world leaders at an APEC meeting in San Francisco. Feelings grew in Taiwan that America regarded it a pawn. The Biden administration forced Taiwan to invest in producing top-of-the line computer chips in Arizona, thus disabling what President Tsai called Taiwan’s “silicon shield.” She and Taiwan’s population could also see that China was on the rise; the U.S. was not.
Opinion polls in Taiwan reflected this. While residents’ identity favoured Taiwan and they picked independence over unification, they fancied the status quo more, and perceived Taiwan would reunify with China in the long run. Most of all they wanted peace. War, even if the U.S. kept its promises and fought for Taiwan, would still mean Taiwan would suffer grievously.
Finally, they preferred China’s world order that was founded on financial and technological power, not America’s system which relied on military might that Henry Kissinger, among others, opined was in quick decay.
Hence, it is understandable why U.S. pundits see China attacking Taiwan even with nuclear weapons much more likely than Taiwan scholars.
After years of avoiding extradition, Julian Assange’s appeal is likely his last chance. Here’s how it might unfold (and how we got here)
On February 20 and 21, Julian Assange will ask the High Court of England and Wales to reverse a decision from June last year allowing the United Kingdom to extradite him to the United States.
There he faces multiple counts of computer misuse and espionage stemming from his work with WikiLeaks, publishing sensitive US government documents provided by Chelsea Manning. The US government has repeatedly claimed that Assange’s actions risked its national security.
This is the final avenue of appeal in the UK, although Stella Assange, Julian’s wife, has indicated he would seek an order from the European Court of Human Rights if he loses the application for appeal. The European Court, an international court that hears cases under the European Convention on Human Rights, can issue orders that are binding on convention member states. In 2022, an order from the court stopped the UK sending asylum seekers to Rwanda pending a full review of the relevant legislation.
The extradition process has been running for nearly five years. Over such a long time, it’s easy to lose track of the sequence of events that led to this. Here’s how we got here, and what might happen next.
Years-long extradition attempt
From 2012 until May 2019, Assange resided in the Ecuadorian embassy in London after breaching bail on unrelated charges. While he remained in the embassy, the police could not arrest him without the permission of the Ecuadorian government.
In 2019, Ecuador allowed Assange’s arrest. He was then convicted of breaching bail conditions, and imprisoned in Belmarsh Prison, where he’s remained during the extradition proceedings. Shortly after his arrest, the United States laid charges against Assange and requested his extradition from the United Kingdom.
Assange immediately challenged the extradition request. After delays due to COVID, in January 2021, the District Court decided the extradition could not proceed because it would be “oppressive” to Assange.
The ruling was based on the likely conditions that Assange would face in an American prison and the high risk that he would attempt suicide. The court rejected all other arguments against extradition.
The American government appealed the District Court decision. It provided assurances on prison conditions for Assange to overcome the finding that the extradition would be oppressive. Those assurances led to the High Court overturning the order stopping extradition. Then the Supreme Court (the UK’s top court) refused Assange’s request to appeal that ruling.
The extradition request then passed to the home secretary, who approved it. Assange appealed the home secretary’s decision, which a single judge of the High Court rejected in June 2023.
This appeal is against that most recent ruling and will be heard by a two-judge bench. These judges will only decide whether Assange has grounds for appeal. If they decide in his favour, the court will schedule a full hearing of the merits of the appeal. That hearing would come at the cost of further delay in the resolution of his case.
Growing political support
Parallel to the legal challenges, Assange’s supporters have led a political campaign to stop the prosecution and the extradition. One goal of the campaign has been to persuade the Australian government to argue Assange’s case with the American government.
Cross-party support from individual parliamentarians has steadily grown, led by independent MP Andrew Wilkie. Over the past two years, the government, including the foreign minister and the prime minister, have made stronger and clearer statements that the prosecution should end.
On February 14, Wilkie proposed a motion in support of Assange, seconded by Labor MP Josh Wilson. The house was asked to “underline the importance of the UK and USA bringing the matter to a close so that Mr Assange can return home to his family in Australia.” It was passed.
In addition, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus confirmed he had recently raised the Assange prosecution with his American counterpart, who has the authority to end it.
What will Assange’s team argue?
For the High Court appeal, it is expected Assange’s legal team will once again argue the extradition would be oppressive and that the American assurances are inadequate. A recent statement by Alice Edwards, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, supports their argument that extradition could lead to treatment “amounting to torture or other forms of ill-treatment or punishment”. She rejected the adequacy of American assurances, saying:
They are not legally binding, are limited in their scope, and the person the assurances aim to protect may have no recourse if they are violated.
The argument that extradition would be oppressive remains the strongest ground for appeal. However, it is likely Assange’s lawyers will also repeat some of the arguments which were unsuccessful in the District Court proceedings.
One argument is that the charges against Assange, particularly the espionage charges, are political offences. The United States–United Kingdom extradition treaty does not allow either state to extradite for political offences.
Assange is also likely to re-run the argument that his leaks of classified documents were exercises of his right to freedom of expression under the European Convention on Human Rights. To date, the European Court of Human Rights has never found that an extradition request violates freedom of expression. For the High Court to do so would be an innovative ruling.
The High Court will hear two days of legal argument and might not give its judgement immediately, but it will probably be delivered soon after the hearing. Whatever the decision, Assange’s supporters will continue their political campaign, supported by the Australian government, to stop the prosecution.
How British Intelligence Framed Julian Assange As Russian Agent
KIT KLARENBERG FEB 19, 2024
February 20/21st could mark WikiLeaks founder-and-chief Julian Assange’s final opportunity to avoid extradition to the US. London’s High Court has scheduled two days of arguments over whether he can ask an appeals court to block his transfer Stateside. If unsuccessful, he could be sent across the Atlantic, where he faces prosecution under Washington’s draconian Espionage Act, and penalties ranging from 175 years in a “supermax” prison, to death, for exposing the lies and crimes of US global empire.
It is the most important press freedom case of all time. Yet, at no point during Julian’s seven years of arbitrary detention in London’s Ecuadorian embassy, or five years at His Majesty’s Pleasure in Belmarsh Prison, Britain’s “Gitmo”, have the mainstream media or international human rights groups taken a serious interest in his plight. Many Western citizens – including those who had hitherto full-throatedly supported WikiLeaks, and Julian’s crusade against official secrecy – were also indifferent over, if not outright supportive of, his violent explusion from the Ecuadorian embassy.
Much of this conspiracy of silence and apathy can be attributed to a concerted campaign of calumny, incubated in London and Washington DC, designed to extinguish public sympathy for Julian. As Nils Melzer, the United Nations special rapporteur on torture, wrote in a June 2019 op-ed Western media refused to publish, he was “systematically slandered to divert attention from the crimes he exposed,” and once he’d been “dehumanized through isolation, ridicule and shame, just like the witches we used to burn at the stake, it was easy to deprive him of his most fundamental rights without provoking public outrage worldwide.”
A prominent libel against Julian was that he operated upon the orders, and in the interests, of the Kremlin. Built up as an omnipotent villain on the world stage following the February 2014 Western-sponsored Maidan coup in Ukraine, and all manner of domestic political upheaval in Europe and North America small and large framed as somehow Moscow-orchestrated ever after, anyone and anything branded as even vaguely sympathetic to Russia automatically became an FSB and/or GRU chaos agent.
When British police forcibly hauled Julian handcuffed out of the Ecuadorian embassy, many mainstream outlets – and a great many Russiagaters – cheered, believing he would soon be indicted for his GRU-assisted role in subverting the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential election. No such charges have been forthcoming. And in September 2021, Yahoo News inadvertently let an incongruous cat out of the bag. The outlet revealed the CIA had explored plans to surveil, kidnap, and even kill Julian while he was ensconced in the Ecuadorian Embassy.
The explosive report was almost entirely ignored by the mainstream media – although one fundamental aspect of the article even its advocates and promoters largely overlooked was the disclosure that the CIA possessed no evidence Julian or WikiLeaks had any ties whatsoever with Russia. “Difficulty” in proving he or his organization had operated “at the direct behest of the Kremlin” was reportedly a “major factor” when, in April 2017, Mike Pompeo, then-C.I.A. director, designated WikiLeaks a “non-state hostile intelligence service.” That unfounded assertion opened the floodgates for the Agency’s untrammeled surveillance, harassment, and persecution of Julian and his collaborators. It also served as justification for its assassination plots.
There is another dimension to this mephitic myth that has largely remained unexplored. Integrity Initiative, a covert British intelligence information warfare operation, was pivotal to perpetuating the narrative of Julian as Kremlin asset. This sordid tale reveals just how flimsy Western propaganda campaigns are concocted and then disseminated through compliant media. Now, with Julian facing extradition to the US, it has never been more urgent to expose.
Killing Hope
A major component of the Integrity Initiative scandal was the organisation’s construction of cloak-and-dagger “clusters”. These were – and may well remain today – clandestine networks of journalists, scholars, politicians and military and intelligence operatives, which the Initiative could mobilise to disseminate black propaganda, therefore influencing policy and perceptions, targeting domestic and overseas adversaries. One little-known example of the potency of clusters was an aggressive campaign to falsely connect Julian with the Kremlin.
The Initiative’s Spanish cluster was particularly instrumental in this regard. The largest and most influential of any Initiative cluster outside the UK, its ranks include a number of prominent journalists, academics, think tank representatives, lawmkaers from several parties, government ministers, and military officials.
Initiative documents leaked in November 2018 by Anonymous, the “hacktivist” collective, detail how this nexus has successfully subverted the Spanish political process. There is, for instance, the case of Pedro Baños, a colonel in the Spanish army and formerly chief of counterintelligence and security for the European Army Corps. His fate is highly relevant to the Initiative’s role in framing Assange as a Russian asset.
In June 2018, the spook-staffed Initiative learned Madrid’s governing Socialist Workers’ Party was to appoint Baños director of Spain’s National Security Department, roughly the equivalent of the US Department of Homeland Security. Baños had repeatedly appeared on RT and Sputnik in the months prior, and publicly called for constructive, harmonious relations between the European Union and Moscow.
The Initiative couldn’t tolerate his appointment to such an influential post. Within hours of learning this confidential information, the Spanish cluster covertly passed dossiers on the colonel to local and international media outlets and activated its overseas clusters to publish negative comments about the proposed move on social media, to “generate international support” for its blockage.
The Initiative’s London-based team also set up a dedicated WhatsApp group “to coordinate Twitter response, get contacts to expand awareness and get people retweeting the material.”
The cluster, moreover, sent material to El País and El Mundo, leading Spanish dailies. Representatives of the People’s Party—which has cluster operatives within its ranks—and Ciudadanos, another centrist party, publicly called for Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to block the appointment, while some Spanish diplomats also expressed their “concerns.” As the day drew to a close, it was confirmed Baños was no longer in the running for the post……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
The cluster, moreover, sent material to El País and El Mundo, leading Spanish dailies. Representatives of the People’s Party—which has cluster operatives within its ranks—and Ciudadanos, another centrist party, publicly called for Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to block the appointment, while some Spanish diplomats also expressed their “concerns.” As the day drew to a close, it was confirmed Baños was no longer in the running for the post.
Even more damningly, McGrath found Julian featured in just 17 of 596 stories about Catalonia published by RT and Sputnik from September – December 2017. Meanwhile, of the 1,508 tweets shared by the pair’s English- and Spanish-language Twitter accounts on Catalonia within this timeframe, a mere 22 – 1.46% – mentioned him. Ironically, El País published considerably more stories referencing Julian than Sputnik and RT combined during this period. McGrath concluded:
“Claims about fake news, especially those published in the media and brought before legislative bodies, need to be more thoroughly scrutinized. It is important to conduct further research to understand how widespread of an issue fake news about fake news is and how these unfounded allegations come about. It is necessary to explore how claims of fake news can themselves be used as a manipulative tactic and understand the impact this has on society.”……………………………………………………………………………………..
This egregious saga is a particularly pitiful example of the ease with which Western intelligence agencies can flood corporate media with outright fiction on the flimsiest of bases, in the knowledge credulous, pliable “journalists” will peddle their fallacious lies as fact in the manner of religious conviction, and never face consequenceso.
If and when their lies are exposed, they can pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened, safely clinging to their legitimizing awards, sanitised Wikipedia entries, and plaudits. Meanwhile, Julian is approaching the fifth anniversary of his arrival in “Britain’s Gitmo”. Each and every day since, his mental and physical health has deteriorated.
Now, his only path to liberation from that hellish structure may be a 175–year sentence in a supermax prison, situated not far from the headquarters of a spying agency that not long ago drew up elaborate plans to murder him in cold blood. https://www.kitklarenberg.com/p/how-british-intelligence-framed-julian-088?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=552010&post_id=141816575&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&utm_medium=email
US Threatens to Veto New Gaza Ceasefire Resolution at UN Security Council
The US has vetoed two similar resolutions
by Dave DeCamp February 18, 2024, https://news.antiwar.com/2024/02/18/us-threatens-to-veto-new-gaza-ceasefire-resolution-at-un-security-council/
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The US is threatening to veto a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza at the UN Security Council as the US continues to provide political cover for the Israeli massacre of Palestinians.
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in a statement that if the resolution, which is being drafted by Algeria, was brought to a vote, it would not be adopted.
Thomas-Greenfield justified US opposition to a ceasefire by pointing to US efforts to push for a new hostage deal between Israel and Hamas. However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vetoed hostage talks last week, and Qatar, the mediator of the negotiations, said Saturday that things were not looking “promising.”
Thomas-Greenfield said Algeria’s resolution would “run counter” to US efforts on the hostage deal. “We have communicated this concern repeatedly to our colleagues on the Council. For that reason, the United States does not support action on this draft resolution. Should it come up for a vote as drafted, it will not be adopted,” she said.
The US has already used its veto power on the Security Council to veto two resolutions calling for an end to the onslaught. The Biden administration has also dismissed the International Court of Justice’s ruling that it’s “plausible” Israel is committing genocide and continues to provide unconditional military support for the slaughter.
Thomas-Greenfield said the resolution would get in the way of US “diplomacy” related to pushing for a hostage deal. “It is critical that other parties give this process the best odds of succeeding, rather than push measures that put it — and the opportunity for an enduring resolution of hostilities — in jeopardy,” she said.
Nuclear news – week to 19 February
Some bits of good news – Sea Otters Returned to a Degraded Coastline Ate Enough Crabs to Restore Balance and Cut Erosion by 90%.England set a biodiversity benchmark. Wind power awards and wildlife photography: Positive environmental stories from 2024.
TOP STORIES. Chris Hedges: Julian Assange’s Final Appeal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvdTG56UbdcAustralian PM Albanese and 85 Other MPs Vote to End Assange Incarceration.
Biodiversity: the first ever State of the World’s Migratory Species report released.
Nuclear Illusions Hinder Climate Efforts as Costs Keep Rising. Nuclear Delays, Cost Overruns Imperil UK’s Net-Zero Goals .
Surviving an Era of Pervasive Nuclear Instability.
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From the archives. The war-mongering of Israel and USA.
Climate.Collapse of Ocean Currents Could Cause Major Climate Problems.
Nuclear. The U.S. industry is pretty quiet, still licking its wounds oveer the NuScale small nuclear reactor fiasco. Not so -Britain. The UK is in a turmoil (actually over lots of things) – but especially over MONEY – and the obscene costs of its Great British Nuclear Policy – not going too well at all!
Noel’s notes: Israel, USA, the “West” can’t hide their atrocious guilt any more. Again – the power of the Zionist lobby. 11 year old boys and nukes in space.
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AUSTRALIA. Australian Parliament votes in favour of bringing Julian Assange home. Dutton goes nuclear on government’s renewable plans. Australia’s nuclear future and the legal ramifications of ratifying the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Wind and solar are delivering an energy transition at record speed.
NUCLEAR ISSUES
| ECONOMICS. UK: Spending watchdog launches investigation into Sellafield nuclear waste site. The UK’s biggest nuclear waste dump faces an inquiry by the National Audit Office (NAO) over its soaring costs and safety record. UK Nuclear financing comes unstuck. Energy company Centrica boss says it could fund Suffolk nuclear plant Sizewell C. France: EDF’s setbacks weigh down the relaunch of nuclear power in Europe. France’s first 6 EPR2 nuclear reactors will cost much more than the planned 52 billion euros. Energy company Centrica boss says it could fund Suffolk nuclear plant Sizewell C. | ENVIRONMENT. AI, climate change, pandemics and nuclear warfare put humanity in ‘grave danger’, open letter warns. The Saltwater Threat: A Death Sentence for Freshwater Life as EDF plans to flood area, in service to Hinkley Nuclear Project . | HEALTH. Radiation. Breakthrough research unveils effects of ionizing radiation on cellul |
| POLITICS. UK: Britain must pay more for Hinkley, says France. UK government keen to take control of Anglesey site for Westinghouse to build Wylfa nuclear power station. Planned UK nuclear reactors unlikely to help hit green target, say MPs. Environmental Audit Committee urges UK Government to clarify nuclear SMR strategy UK’s Nuclear Strategy Faces Criticism: Uncertainty Looms for Small Modular Reactors. Nuclear Free Local Authorities call on nuclear industry to spend more on social action. Radiation Free Lakeland urges East Riding Councillors to Withdraw from GDF process. PM Trudeau dismisses Algonquin concerns over Chalk River nuclear waste dump. “Unbelievable” U.S. government bailouts fund zombie nuclear projects. | POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. Nuclear weapons and poison pills: Washington, Beijing warily circle AI talks. EU nuclear weapons ‘unrealistic,’ says German defense committee chair. Shameless Emmanuel Macron demands British taxpayers cough up more cash for nuclear power. | SAFETY. Congress takes aim at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.Nuclear regulator raps EDF over safety flaws. Latest Fukushima leak exposes failures in nuclear crisis management. Safety panel urges Fukushima nuclear plant operator to better communicate with public. The Complexity of Nuclear Submarine Safeguards Impacts the Current Landscape. |
| SECRETS and LIES. South Korea’s nuclear mafia. | SPACE. EXPLORATION, WEAPONS. The ‘disturbing’ intel roiling the Hill is about Russian nukes in space. From Russia with nukes? Sifting facts from speculation about space weapon threat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xl0C6K2Nug – Long video – but worth it.SpaceX deorbiting 100 older Starlink satellites to ‘keep space safe and sustainable’. ‘Everyone needs to calm down’: experts assess Russian nuclear space threat. Is there really a nuclear weapon in space? | SPINBUSTER. The War on Gaza: Public Relations vs. Reality. Russian ‘nukes in space’ scare by Biden admin is nonsense. Exploding Alberta’s Myths about Small Nuclear Reactors. |
Chris Hedges: Julian Assange’s Final Appeal
Julian Assange will make his final appeal this week to the British courts to avoid extradition. If he is extradited it is the death of investigations into the inner workings of power by the press.
By Chris Hedges / ScheerPost, 18 Feb 24
LONDON — If Julian Assange is denied permission to appeal his extradition to the United States before a panel of two judges at the High Court in London this week, he will have no recourse left within the British legal system. His lawyers can ask the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) for a stay of execution under Rule 39, which is given in “exceptional circumstances” and “only where there is an imminent risk of irreparable harm.” But it is far from certain that the British court will agree. It may order Julian’s immediate extradition prior to a Rule 39 instruction or may decide to ignore a request from the ECtHR to allow Julian to have his case heard by the court.
The nearly 15-year-long persecution of Julian, which has taken a heavy toll on his physical and psychological health, is done in the name of extradition to the U.S. where he would stand trial for allegedly violating 17 counts of the 1917 Espionage Act, with a potential sentence of 170 years.
Julian’s “crime” is that he published classified documents, internal messages, reports and videos from the U.S. government and U.S. military in 2010, which were provided by U.S. army whistleblower Chelsea Manning. This vast trove of material revealed massacres of civilians, torture, assassinations, the list of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay and the conditions they were subjected to, as well as the Rules of Engagement in Iraq. Those who perpetrated these crimes — including the U.S. helicopter pilots who gunned down two Reuters journalists and 10 other civilians and severely injured two children, all captured in the Collateral Murder video — have never been prosecuted.
Julian exposed what the U.S. empire seeks to airbrush out of history.
Julian’s persecution is an ominous message to the rest of us. Defy the U.S. imperium, expose its crimes, and no matter who you are, no matter what country you come from, no matter where you live, you will be hunted down and brought to the U.S. to spend the rest of your life in one of the harshest prison systems on earth. If Julian is found guilty it will mean the death of investigative journalism into the inner workings of state power. To possess, much less publish, classified material — as I did when I was a reporter for The New York Times — will be criminalized. And that is the point, one understood by The New York Times, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, El País and The Guardian, who issued a joint letter calling on the U.S. to drop the charges against him.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and other federal lawmakers voted on Thursday for the United States and Britain to end Julian’s incarceration, noting that it stemmed from him “doing his job as a journalist” to reveal “evidence of misconduct by the U.S.”
The legal case against Julian, which I have covered from the beginning and will cover again in London this week, has a bizarre Alice-in-Wonderland quality, where judges and lawyers speak in solemn tones about law and justice while making a mockery of the most basic tenants of civil liberties and jurisprudence.
How can hearings go forward when the Spanish security firm at the Ecuadorian Embassy, UC Global, where Julian sought refuge for seven years, provided videotaped surveillance of meetings between Julian and his lawyers to the CIA, eviscerating attorney-client privilege? This alone should have seen the case thrown out of court.
How can the Ecuadorian government led by Lenin Moreno violate international law by rescinding Julian’s asylum status and permit London Metropolitan Police into the Ecuadorian Embassy — sovereign territory of Ecuador — to carry Julian to a waiting police van?
Why did the courts accept the prosecution’s charge that Julian is not a legitimate journalist?
Why did the United States and Britain ignore Article 4 of their Extradition Treaty that prohibits extradition for political offenses?
How is the case against Julian allowed to go ahead after the key witness for the United States, Sigurdur Thordarson – a convicted fraudster and pedophile – admitted to fabricating the accusations he made against Julian?
How can Julian, an Australian citizen, be charged under the U.S. Espionage Act when he did not engage in espionage and wasn’t based in the U.S when he received the leaked documents?
Why are the British courts permitting Julian to be extradited to the U.S. when the CIA — in addition to putting Julian under 24-hour video and digital surveillance while in the Ecuadorian Embassy — considered kidnapping and assassinating him, plans that included a potential shoot-out on the streets of London with involvement by the Metropolitan Police?
How can Julian be condemned as a publisher when he did not, as Daniel Ellsberg did, obtain and leak the classified documents he published?
Why is the U.S. government not charging the publisher of The New York Times or The Guardian with espionage for publishing the same leaked material in partnership with WikiLeaks?
Why is Julian being held in isolation in a high-security prison without trial for nearly five years when his only technical violation of the law is breaching bail conditions when he sought asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy? Normally this would entail a fine. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Julian’s lawyers will attempt to convince two High Court judges to grant him permission to appeal a number of the arguments against extradition which Judge Baraitser dismissed in January 2021. His lawyers, if the appeal is granted, will argue that prosecuting Julian for his journalistic activity represents a “grave violation” of his right to free speech; that Julian is being prosecuted for his political opinions, something which the U.K.-U.S. extradition treaty does not allow; that Julian is charged with “pure political offenses” and the U.K.-U.S. extradition treaty prohibits extradition under such circumstances; that Julian should not be extradited to face prosecution where the Espionage Act “is being extended in an unprecedented and unforeseeable way”; that the charges could be amended resulting in Julian facing the death penalty; and that Julian will not receive a fair trial in the U.S. They are also asking for the right to introduce new evidence about CIA plans to kidnap and assassinate Julian.
If the High Court grants Julian permission to appeal, a further hearing will be scheduled during which time he will argue his appeal grounds. If the High Court refuses to grant Julian permission to appeal, the only option left is to appeal to the ECtHR. If he is unable to take his case to the ECtHR he will be extradiated to the U.S.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. No other contemporary journalist has come close to matching his revelations.
Julian is the first. We are next. https://scheerpost.com/2024/02/18/chris-hedges-julian-assanges-final-appealchris-hedges/—
1 This month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
15 April – Zoom –Nuclear Power is Not the Solution
Apr 15, 2026 01:00 AM in Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney
Join the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) on Tuesday, April 14th for a timely webinar exploring the risks associated with nuclear power and challenging the myth that it offers a simple, safe, carbon-free solution to the climate crisis
21 April Webinar: No Nuclear Weapons in Australia
Start: 2026-04-21 18:00:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
End: 2026-04-21 19:30:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
Event Type: Virtual
A virtual link will be communicated before the event.
Host Contact Info: australia@icanw.org
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 
