A Radically Different World Since Assange’s Indictment
Biden would have hell to pay from the DNC and the C.I.A. if he dropped the case.
Still, he’s probably not so foolish to want a shackled journalist showing up on U.S. shores to stand trial in the midst of his re-election campaign.
Leniency towards Assange would win back some respect the United States has lost, which would mean it couldn’t suffer another blow and had finally woken to the new world it inhabits. Crushing him would be yet another step towards its demise.
The Assange case is a centerpiece of an emerging, global challenge to U.S. dominance that did not exist in 2010 when the U.S. began its legal pursuit of the publisher, says Joe Lauria.
By Joe Lauria, Consortium News, 29 Jan 24
The world has changed dramatically since the United States began its legal pursuit of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, bringing new risks to the U.S. if it persists in pursuing him to the end.
The geo-strategic situation and the state of the media are today nearly unrecognizable from 2010, when the U.S. empaneled a grand jury to indict Assange. Conditions have changed significantly since even 2019, when he was dragged from the embassy and the indictment was unveiled.
The United States is in the midst of suffering its third major, strategic defeat since the process against Assange began, bringing potentially significant consequences for the U.S., the world and possibly Assange.
In just the past three years, the United States has experienced humiliating defeats in Afghanistan, Ukraine, and now Gaza.
Afghanistan hurt Americans’ sensitivities about their precious “prestige,” which American elites care so much about. The rest of the world takes it into its geo-strategic calculations.
The U.S. instigation of war in Ukraine, intended to weaken Russia and bring down its government, has instead turned into a debacle for the United States and Europe of world historical proportions.
A new commercial, financial and diplomatic system has emerged in opposition to the U.S.-dominated West. This had been slowly developing but was accelerated by Washington’s provocation in Ukraine. It is a way more serious problem for the United States than the mere loss of “prestige.”
Add to this the worldwide disapproval and condemnation the U.S. is facing for its blatant complicity in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza during a war the U.S. and Israel are not winning. The result is U.S. legitimacy has significantly weakened around the world. And at home.
Is this the moment to bring a journalist to the United States in chains to stand trial for publishing truthful material that exposed earlier crimes by the United States?
The risks of doing so at this moment — a very different moment from 2010 — are serious for the U.S, at home and abroad. Domestically the Bill of Rights is at risk. Internationally the bully is losing credibility.
This is seen in the forthrightness of some world leaders, particularly in Latin America, who in the spirit of this new, non-U.S. world, have confronted the United States on its treatment of Assange and have demanded his release.
The established media, which by definition runs cover for the U.S. to commit crimes and abuses wherever its interests are challenged, is suffering its own precipitous loss of legitimacy. The spectacular growth of both social and independent media’s influence since 2010 has helped create a worldwide movement in defense of Assange and the basic principle of a free press.
The question is how aware is the Biden administration of this new world and how will it react?
At a certain point U.S. hubris and intransigence would seem to be headed for collapse. But until then, Washington will no doubt double down in denial and in vengeance. It’s not giving up in Ukraine nor in Gaza — the neocon grip on power in Washington over the realists remains. Will the extremists remain ascendant on Assange too?
In December 2010, Vice President Joe Biden told the television news show Meet the Press that the Obama administration could only indict Assange if they caught him red-handed stealing government secrets and not receiving them passively as a journalist. The Obama administration concluded he was acting as a journalist, even if they refused to call him one, and didn’t indict him.
So what changed for Biden? Why does he persist in this prosecution begun by his mortal enemy Donald Trump and Trump’s C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo?
The indictment until today still only deals with events in 2010. Nothing has changed legally. But everything changed politically for President Biden, the head of the Democratic Party, with the 2016 DNC leaks, and the C.I.A. Vault 7 releases the following year.
Biden would have hell to pay from the DNC and the C.I.A. if he dropped the case.
Still, he’s probably not so foolish to want a shackled journalist showing up on U.S. shores to stand trial in the midst of his re-election campaign. The High Court here in London has been good at dragging things out and could easily do so until after November.
The Assange case is a centerpiece of this global challenge to U.S. dominance that did not exist in 2010.
To the extent that U.S. leaders are aware of what is happening to U.S. standing in the world, their propensity is to lash out with the only argument they have left – lethal force. In Assange’s case it is legal force, with lethal consequences.
Leniency towards Assange would win back some respect the United States has lost, which would mean it couldn’t suffer another blow and had finally woken to the new world it inhabits. Crushing him would be yet another step towards its demise.
The U.S. does not really need him. It has enough blood on its hands.
This is the text of an address Joe Lauria made by video on Monday to a conference in Sydney, Australia.
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange. He can be reached at joelauria@consortiumnews.com and followed on Twitter @unjoe
A Visit to Belmarsh Prison, Where Julian Assange Awaits His Final Appeal Against Extradition to the US
The Wikileaks founder says he fears his own imprisonment, US government surveillance, and restrictions on the group’s funding have effectively scared off potential whistleblowers.
The Nation, CHARLES GLASS, 2 Jan 24
MP BELMARSH—It is 2:30 PM on Wednesday, December 13, when Julian Assange strides into the visitors’ area. He stands out in the column of 23 prisoners for his height—6′ 2″—and flowing white locks with trimmed beard. He squints, looking for a familiar face among the wives, sisters, sons, and fathers of the other inmates. I am waiting, as assigned, at D-3, one of about 40 sets of small coffee tables surrounded by three upholstered chairs—two blue, one red—screwed into the floor of what looks like a basketball court. We spot each other, walk forward, and embrace. It is the first time I have seen him in six years. I blurt, “You’re pale.” Through a mischievous smile I remember from past meetings, he jokes, “They call it prison pale.”
He has not been outdoors—apart from a minute when police dragged him into a paddy wagon—since he took refuge in London’s cramped Ecuadorian Embassy in June 2012. The embassy’s French windows had afforded glimpses of sky. Here at Belmarsh maximum security prison in southeast London, his abode since April 11, 2019, he has not seen the sun. Warders confine him to a cell for 23 out of every 24 hours. His single hour of recreation takes place within four walls, under supervision. His paleness is best described as deathly……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Julian and I sit down, face to face, me on the red chair, he on one of the blues. Above us, glass globes hide cameras that record the interactions between inmates and their guests.
…………………………. Julian had thought prison meant communal meals at long tables, as in the movies. Belmarsh’s warders shove the food into the cells for prisoners to eat alone. It is hard to make friends that way. He has been there longer than any other prisoner apart from an old man who had served seven years to his four and a half. There are occasional suicides, he tells me, including one the night before.
……………………………… I ask whether he still has the radio he had struggled to obtain in his first year. He did, but it was not working due to a defective plug. Regulations permit each prisoner to have a radio purchased from prison stores. The authorities, however, said no radios were available for him. When I heard about it, I sent him a radio. It was returned. I then sent him a book on how to make a radio. That too was returned………………………………………………………………
How did he, a news addict, keep in touch? The prison allows him to read printouts of news stories, and friends write to him. With the invasions of Ukraine and Gaza, I say, now is an important time for whistleblowers to send documents to WikiLeaks. He regrets that WikiLeaks is no longer able to expose war crimes and corruption as in the past. His imprisonment and US government surveillance and restrictions on WikiLeaks’ funding wards off potential whistleblowers. He fears that other media outlets are not filling the vacuum.
Belmarsh does not offer him education programs or communal activity, like orchestra practice, sports, or publishing a prison journal, that are standard at many other prisons. The regime is punitive; although Belmarsh’s 700-odd inhabitants are on remand, awaiting trial or appeal. They are 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.
We talk about Christmas, which is just another day in Belmarsh: no turkey, no carols, no presents. The prison is closed to visitors on Christmas Day and the day after, and the prison has informed his wife, Stella Moris, that she and their two young sons, Gabriel and Max, may not see him on Christmas Eve. He can attend Catholic Mass celebrated by the Polish chaplain, who has become a friend.
………….Apart from occasional visiting days, his days are all the same: the confined space, the loneliness, the books, the memories, the hope that his lawyers’ appeal against extradition and life imprisonment in the United States will succeed……….. https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/julian-assange-wikileaks-belmarsh-prison/
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