Julian Assange may soon be extradited to the United States, where he will face prosecution that could end in his imprisonment for life. He is in fact a hero, who should be honored rather than punished. American foreign policy is based on the pursuit of global hegemony and to achieve this goal, our “leaders” engage in torture and murder. Assange brought these crimes to public attention through his publication of the “WikiLeaks” documents he got from Bradley Manning. Because of this, the American government, now headed by brain-dead Biden and his gang of neocon controllers, wants to destroy him. In what follows, I’ll explain the facts of the case and why they are important and detail the persecution of Assange.
Chris Hedges outlines what is at stake:
“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.” See here.
It’s important that we understand in detail what was in the WikiLeaks documents. In an article published in March, 2020, the 10th anniversary of their publication, Arjun Walla gives us some of the highlights:
“Last month marked the 10th anniversary of WikiLeaks’ publication of the Collateral Murder video. The video shows how two Apache helicopters murdered 11 Iraqi people including two Reuters journalists. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded. This is one of the publications Julian Assange is being indicted for espionage. He faces 175 years in a US jail if extradited from the UK. WikiLeaks obtained the video as well as supporting documents from a number of military whistleblowers. WikiLeaks goes to great lengths to verify the authenticity of the information it receives. They analyzed the information about this incident from a variety of source material and spoke to witnesses and journalists directly involved in the incident.
