Julian Assange Being Turned over to UK????

The Hedges article I linked to above includes mention of the Pentagon's deliberate media campaign to discredit him: 

Once the documents and videos provided by Manning to Assange and WikiLeaks were published and disseminated by news organizations such as The New York Times and The Guardian, the press callously, and foolishly, turned on Assange. News organizations that had run WikiLeaks material over several days soon served as conduits in a black propaganda campaign to discredit Assange and WikiLeaks. This coordinated smear campaign was detailed in a leaked Pentagon document prepared by the Cyber Counterintelligence Assessments Branch and dated March 8, 2008. The document called on the U.S. to eradicate the “feeling of trust” that is WikiLeaks’ “center of gravity” and destroy Assange’s reputation.

The link in the above quote is for this article:

Bring Julian Assange Home

In 2008, a plan to destroy both WikiLeaks and Assange was laid out in a top secret document dated 8 March, 2008. The authors were the Cyber Counter-intelligence Assessments Branch of the US Defence Department. They described in detail how important it was to destroy the “feeling of trust” that is WikiLeaks’ “centre of gravity”.

This would be achieved, they wrote, with threats of “exposure [and] criminal prosecution” and a unrelenting assault on reputation. The aim was to silence and criminalise WikiLeaks and its editor and publisher. It was as if they planned a war on a single human being and on the very principle of freedom of speech.

Their main weapon would be personal smear. Their shock troops would be enlisted in the media — those who are meant to keep the record straight and tell us the truth.

The irony is that no one told these journalists what to do. I call them Vichy journalists — after the Vichy government that served and enabled the German occupation of wartime France.

Last October, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation journalist Sarah Ferguson interviewed Hillary Clinton, over whom she fawned as “the icon for your generation”.

This was the same Clinton who threatened to “obliterate totally” Iran and, who, as US secretary of State in 2011, was one of the instigators of the invasion and destruction of Libya as a modern state, with the loss of 40,000 lives. Like the invasion of Iraq, it was based on lies.

When the Libyan President was murdered publicly and gruesomely with a knife, Clinton was filmed whooping and cheering. Thanks largely to her, Libya became a breeding ground for ISIS and other jihadists.  Thanks largely to her, tens of thousands of refugees fled in peril across the Mediterranean, and many drowned.

Leaked emails published by WikiLeaks revealed that Hillary Clinton’s foundation – which she shares with her husband – received millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the main backers of ISIS and terrorism across the Middle East.

As Secretary of State, Clinton approved the biggest arms sale ever — worth $80 billion — to Saudi Arabia, one of her foundation’s principal benefactors. Today, Saudi Arabia is using these weapons to crush starving and stricken people in a genocidal assault on  Yemen.

Sarah Ferguson, a highly paid reporter, raised not a word of this with Hillary Clinton sitting in front of her.

Instead, she invited Clinton to describe the “damage” Julian Assange did “personally to you”. In response, Clinton defamed Assange, an Australian citizen, as “very clearly a tool of Russian intelligence” and “a nihilistic opportunist who does the bidding of a dictator”.

She offered no evidence — nor was asked for any — to back her grave allegations.

At no time was Assange offered the right of reply to this shocking interview, which Australia’s publicly-funded state broadcaster had a duty to give him.

As if that wasn’t enough, Ferguson’s executive producer, Sally Neighour, followed the interview with a vicious re-tweet: “Assange is Putin’s *****. We all know it!”

dave said:
You do realize Assange is charged with hacking, not writing or publishing stories, right??  Also jumping bail in the UK, of course. 

From the indictment: “Cracking the password would have allowed Manning to log onto the computers* under a user name that did not belong to her. Such a measure would have made it more difficult for investigators to identify Manning as the source of disclosures of classified information.”

* Computers whose files she already had access to using her own credentials.

There are arguments to be made that cracking a password, if true, counts as hacking. But they’d miss some of the bigger picture, “right??”

Ray McGovern on why Assange is being silenced.  He goes into detail about Vault 7 and the Marble Framework, a tool that allows conversations to be heard from a TV that has been turned off and to control a car and make it to up to 125 miles an hour.  Also, how they know the DNC files were leaked, not hacked and how the CIA has the ability to make code look like it comes from Russia, in case they need a scapegoat.

Freedom Rider: The “Resistance” is Silent on Julian Assange

Ever since Donald Trump was elected president we have heard a lot about people who call themselves the “resistance.” That word has very significant meaning and should not be used frivolously. The enslaved Haitian people resisted the French 200 years ago. Harriet Tubman resisted and so did Tecumseh. Brave people all over the world have resisted colonial invasion, occupation, and racist violence.

But resistance for the anti-Trump group doesn’t amount to very much. They are united in dislike of Donald Trump, but only some of the time. They call him a fascist, but they mute themselves when his fascism supports the bipartisan imperialist consensus.

The so-called resistance have been conspicuously silent ever since Julian Assange was arrested after Ecuador withdrew his asylum from its London embassy. Under the guise of defending the press, this same group became hysterical when Trump had a stupid argument with a CNN reporter.They are enraged when he refers to the media as “enemies of the people.” But when publisher and journalist Julian Assange was snatched up by the U.S. and its vassal states they either said nothing or condemned a man whose actions are the very embodiment of resistance.

Wow.  A direct slam on Bernie the Millionaire!

Very impressed that you posted this Nan.

sbenois said:
Wow.  A direct slam on Bernie the Millionaire!


Very impressed that you posted this Nan.

 While I am not happy with Bernie not standing up for Assange, the author of this piece had a very specific group in mind for blame and it's not Bernie's (although I don't speak for her). She is talking about people like YOU.  Let's look at more of the article:

This resistance is little more than a collective hissy fit from dead ender Democrats who insist on following a party that can’t even reliably stay in office.  They have spent the last three years railing against Trump but bite their tongues when he commits an act that reeks of fascist ideology.

The kindest thing that can be said is that they have been hypnotized by a combination of Democratic Party and corporate media lies. It is very difficult to determine the truth in a culture saturated with all the deformities of an imperial state in panic mode. One has to act as a detective and know which web sites to read or whom to follow on social media in order to learn anything outside of the confines of state propaganda. Ever since election night in November 2016 the public have been subjected to a relentless campaign meant to deflect righteous anger away from the Democrats while furthering imperialist goals at the same time.

Julian Assange has become the poster child for the big lie. His leaks of Democratic National Committee emails are blamed for Hillary Clinton’s defeat. But there was no computer hack of the DNC at all. Assange received leaked materials from an insider and used Wikileaks to publish it.

“His leaks of Democratic National Committee emails are blamed for Hillary Clinton’s defeat.”

But that is only a partial explanation. The reality is far worse. Liberals are just as much true believers in imperialism as the right wing they claim to oppose.They are nothing if not consistent. When the Trump administration announced the coup attempt against the Venezuelan government the resistance didn’t resist at all.

Instead they repeated talking points from the New York Times and National Public Radio which labeled the elected Venezuelan president a brutal dictator. They didn’t question the United States claim of a right to undo the will of people in another country. Some gave wishy washy criticism of military intervention but none of them questioned an intervention which is fascist by any definition.

“Liberals are just as much true believers in imperialism as the right wing they claim to oppose.”

These people will never defend Julian Assange. According to their world view he doesn’t deserve to be defended. He revealed government secrets, which runs counter to their support of the imperialist state, and they think he deprived them of a second Clinton presidency.

Now we know who is for real and who is a phony. Chelsea Manning sits in jail for a second time because she refused to testify before the grand jury which indicted Assange. There are people all over the world occupying Venezuelan embassies and consulates in order to protect them from the would be usurpers. That is resistance. Attacking the person who revealed war crimes is compliance in the service of the state. Perhaps this group needs a new name. They should be honest and call themselves the conformists. That would be truth in advertising.

Oh that's precious Nan.   

I meant to ask you: does Julian have his skateboard in the slammer?   And do you know if he is still prone to wiping his feces on walls?

sbenois said:
Oh that's precious Nan.   
I meant to ask you: does Julian have his skateboard in the slammer?   And do you know if he is still prone to wiping his feces on walls?
 

Dupous Sbenois duped again.

paulsurovell said:
Dupous 

 Umm... can you use that in a sentence, please?

“That other guy was always a thorn in the side of W.E.B. DuPous.”

Mike Tyson gets "Karthik" if he sits in the back.

Julian's efforts to blame a murdered DNC staffer for the leaks, is noted in the Mueller report.

WikiLeaks and Assange made several public statements apparently designed to obscure the source of the materials that WikiLeaks was releasing. The file-transfer evidence described above and other information uncovered during the investigation discredit WikiLeaks's claims about the source of material that it posted. Beginning in the summer of 2016, Assange and WikiLeaks made a number of statements about Seth Rich, a former ONC staff member who was killed in July 2016. The statements about Rich implied falsely that he had been the source of the stolen ONC emails. On August 9,2016, the @WikiLeaks Twitter account posted: "ANNOUNCE: WikiLeaks has decided to issue a US$20k reward for information leading to conviction for the murder of ONC staffer Seth Rich ." Likewise, on August 25, 2016, Assange was asked in an interview, "Why are you so interested in Seth Rich 's killer?" and responded, "We 're very interested in anything that might be a threat to alleged Wikileaks sources." The interviewer responded to Assange 's statement by commenting, "I know you don't want to reveal your source, but it certainly sounds like you're suggesting a man who leaked information to WikiLeaks was then murdered. " Assange replied, "If there's someone who 's potentially connected to our publication, and that person has been murdered in suspicious circumstances, it doesn 't necessarily mean that the two are connected. But it is a very serious matter .. .that type of allegation is very serious, as it's taken very seriously by us.” After the U.S. intelligence community publicly announced its assessment that Russia was behind the hacking operation, Assange continued to deny that the Clinton materials released by WikiLeaks had come from Russian hacking. According to media reports, Assange told a U.S. congressman that the DNC hack was an "inside job," and purported to have "physical proof' that Russians did not give materials to Assange.

Pages 48-49.

Moderate Rebels presents:

What's behind Ecuador's betrayal of Assange? Ex-Foreign Minister Guillaume Long explains

nohero said:
Julian's efforts to blame a murdered DNC staffer for the leaks, is noted in the Mueller report.

WikiLeaks and Assange made several public statements apparently designed to obscure the source of the materials that WikiLeaks was releasing. The file-transfer evidence described above and other information uncovered during the investigation discredit WikiLeaks's claims about the source of material that it posted. Beginning in the summer of 2016, Assange and WikiLeaks made a number of statements about Seth Rich, a former ONC staff member who was killed in July 2016. The statements about Rich implied falsely that he had been the source of the stolen ONC emails. On August 9,2016, the @WikiLeaks Twitter account posted: "ANNOUNCE: WikiLeaks has decided to issue a US$20k reward for information leading to conviction for the murder of ONC staffer Seth Rich ." Likewise, on August 25, 2016, Assange was asked in an interview, "Why are you so interested in Seth Rich 's killer?" and responded, "We 're very interested in anything that might be a threat to alleged Wikileaks sources." The interviewer responded to Assange 's statement by commenting, "I know you don't want to reveal your source, but it certainly sounds like you're suggesting a man who leaked information to WikiLeaks was then murdered. " Assange replied, "If there's someone who 's potentially connected to our publication, and that person has been murdered in suspicious circumstances, it doesn 't necessarily mean that the two are connected. But it is a very serious matter .. .that type of allegation is very serious, as it's taken very seriously by us.” After the U.S. intelligence community publicly announced its assessment that Russia was behind the hacking operation, Assange continued to deny that the Clinton materials released by WikiLeaks had come from Russian hacking. According to media reports, Assange told a U.S. congressman that the DNC hack was an "inside job," and purported to have "physical proof' that Russians did not give materials to Assange.

Pages 48-49.

"According to media reports, Assange told a U.S. congressman that the DNC hack was an 'inside job,' and purported to have 'physical proof' that Russians did not give materials to Assange"

. . . and Mueller declined to interview Assange to ask him for his "physical proof".

In response to Jamie's earlier question, this is a candidate for the worst page of the Russian interference part of the report.

paulsurovell said:
 
"According to media reports, Assange told a U.S. congressman that the DNC hack was an 'inside job,' and purported to have 'physical proof' that Russians did not give materials to Assange"
. . . and Mueller declined to interview Assange to ask him for his "physical proof".

In response to Jamie's earlier question, this is a candidate for the worst page of the Russian interference part of the report.

 You would think he would have wanted to interview Assange.  hum.  

Debunking All The Assange Smears

https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/debunking-all-the-assange-smears-a549fd677cac

Here’s a numbered list of each subject I’ll be covering in this article for ease of reference:

0. How to argue against Assange smears.

1. “He’s not a journalist.”
2. “He’s a rapist.”
3. “He was hiding from rape charges in the embassy.”
4. “He’s a Russian agent.”
5. “He’s being prosecuted for hacking crimes, not journalism.”
6. “He should just go to America and face the music. If he’s innocent he’s got nothing to fear.”
7. “Well he jumped bail! Of course the UK had to arrest him.”
8. “He’s a narcissist/megalomaniac/jerk.”
9. “He’s a horrible awful monster for reasons X, Y and Z… but I don’t think he should be extradited.”
10. “Trump is going to rescue him and they’ll work together to end the Deep State. Relax and wait and see.”
11. “He put poop on the walls. Poop poop poopie.”
12. “He’s stinky.”
13. “He was a bad houseguest.”
14. “He conspired with Don Jr.”
15. “He only publishes leaks about America.”
16. “He’s an antisemite.”
17. “He’s a fascist.”
18. “He was a Trump supporter.”
19. “I used to like him until he ruined the 2016 election” / “I used to hate him until he saved the 2016 election.”
20. “He’s got blood on his hands.”
21. “He published the details of millions of Turkish women voters.”
22. “He supported right-wing political parties in Australia.”
23. “He endangered the lives of gay Saudis.”
24. “He’s a CIA agent/limited hangout.”
25. “He mistreated his cat.”
26. “He’s a pedophile.”
27. “He lied about Seth Rich.”

Wow! That’s a lot! Looking at that list you can only see two possibilities:

1. Julian Assange, who published many inconvenient facts about the powerful and provoked the wrath of opaque and unaccountable government agencies, is literally the worst person in the whole entire world, OR
2. Julian Assange, who published many inconvenient facts about the powerful and provoked the wrath of opaque and unaccountable government agencies, is the target of a massive, deliberate disinformation campaign designed to kill the public’s trust in him.

As it happens, historian Vijay Prashad noted in a recent interview with Chris Hedges that in 2008 a branch of the US Defense Department did indeed set out to “build a campaign to eradicate ‘the feeling of trust of WikiLeaks and their center of gravity’ and to destroy Assange’s reputation.”

I don't buy the Seth Rich theory, but apparently Paul and Nan do.

I think it's a sick theory, and Assange pushed it.  The little detail of his getting the info AFTER Seth Rich was killed, is also in the report. 

paulsurovell said:
 
"According to media reports, Assange told a U.S. congressman that the DNC hack was an 'inside job,' and purported to have 'physical proof' that Russians did not give materials to Assange"
. . . and Mueller declined to interview Assange to ask him for his "physical proof".

In response to Jamie's earlier question, this is a candidate for the worst page of the Russian interference part of the report.

 I can’t imagine why Assange would have vital intelligence information and not post it on his site.

nan said:
Debunking All The Assange Smears
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/debunking-all-the-assange-smears-a549fd677cac
Here’s a numbered list of each subject I’ll be covering in this article for ease of reference:

5. “He’s being prosecuted for hacking crimes, not journalism.

No. 5 is the one that matters. Johnstone notes that “the Obama administration ruled it was impossible to prosecute him based on that evidence because it would endanger press freedoms.” That was the reason the Obama Justice Department gave for not indicting Assange on a charge of publishing classified documents. The Trump administration did not charge Assange for that, however. So Johnstone is conflating the reason for one thing with the reason for a different thing.

Johnstone adds that “the things Assange is accused of doing are things journalists do all the time: attempting to help a source avoid detection, taking steps to try to hide their communications, and encouraging Manning to provide more material.” Journalists do not help a source avoid detection or hide communications so she can commit a felony, and they do not encourage a source to commit a felony in order to provide more material.

“The only thing that changed between the Obama administration and the Trump administration is an increased willingness to attack journalism,” Johnstone says. A former DOJ spokesman told The Times’s Michelle Goldberg that what also changed was Ecuador’s willingness to remove Assange from its embassy. “There’s no reason to bring a case against him when you can’t actually put your hands on him,” the spokesman, Matthew Miller, said.

Miller suggested another possible reason the Obama administration demurred: “This is not the strongest case.”

That may be. Johnstone’s isn’t, either.

nohero said:
I don't buy the Seth Rich theory, but apparently Paul and Nan do.
I think it's a sick theory, and Assange pushed it.  The little detail of his getting the info AFTER Seth Rich was killed, is also in the report. 

 Really, I buy the Seth Rich theory?  Based on what except the desire to smear me?  Not Assange's fault he was not questioned further. 

ridski said:
 I can’t imagine why Assange would have vital intelligence information and not post it on his site.

 Because Assange has to keep secrecy on his sources.  

nan said:

nohero said:
I don't buy the Seth Rich theory, but apparently Paul and Nan do.
I think it's a sick theory, and Assange pushed it.  The little detail of his getting the info AFTER Seth Rich was killed, is also in the report. 

 Really, I buy the Seth Rich theory?  Based on what except the desire to smear me?  Not Assange's fault he was not questioned further. 

 Your posts questioning hacking and endorsing Assange's smearing of Seth Rich see to be support.

Happy to be corrected if you clarify what you're writing.

nan said:

ridski said:
 I can’t imagine why Assange would have vital intelligence information and not post it on his site.

 Because Assange has to keep secrecy on his sources.  

 He telegraphed that it was an inside job via Seth Rich.  He knows that his source was Russian intelligence, but he's not going to confirm that.

nohero said:
 He telegraphed that it was an inside job via Seth Rich.  He knows that his source was Russian intelligence, but he's not going to confirm that.

 Where is the evidence for any of this stuff you are making up?

nan said:

nohero said:
 He telegraphed that it was an inside job via Seth Rich.  He knows that his source was Russian intelligence, but he's not going to confirm that.

 Where is the evidence for any of this stuff you are making up?

 I'm not making it up.  I quoted from the Mueller report earlier. Argue with Mueller, not me.

nohero said:
 I'm not making it up.  I quoted from the Mueller report earlier. Argue with Mueller, not me.

 If you are quoting than where is the quote? Muller did not talk to Assange.

nan said:

nohero said:
 I'm not making it up.  I quoted from the Mueller report earlier. Argue with Mueller, not me.

 If you are quoting than where is the quote? Muller did not talk to Assange.

 Scroll back for the extensive finding, which Mueller didn't need to try to talk to Assange (as if he would be able to) to confirm the information.  Argue with Mueller, not me, but among the three of us I think he knows more (including the intelligence findings that were redacted in the public version) than either you or me.

nan said:

ridski said:
 I can’t imagine why Assange would have vital intelligence information and not post it on his site.

 Because Assange has to keep secrecy on his sources.  

 Then i also can't imagine that he would show Mueller his "physical proof" even if Mueller's team interviewed him. Ergo, what's the point of interviewing him?

nohero said:
 Scroll back for the extensive finding, which Mueller didn't need to try to talk to Assange (as if he would be able to) to confirm the information.  Argue with Mueller, not me, but among the three of us I think he knows more (including the intelligence findings that were redacted in the public version) than either you or me.

 So you can talk big, but you can't post a quote.  You "think" he knows more.  Not exactly scientific.