Sat Mar 23, 2024 11:33 pm by globalturbo
13 Years Ago Julian Assange Published Collateral Murder: Now He Faces 175 Years For Exposing War Crimes
Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange, who faces 175 years for exposing truth, has been in prison for several years experiencing torture while he awaits possible extradition to the United States.
Arjun Walia
Yesterday marked the 13th anniversary of WikiLeaks’ publication of the Collateral Murder video. The video, which you can see below, shows how two US Apache helicopters participated in the unprovoked slaying of 11 Iraqi people including two Reuters journalists. Two young children involved in the incident were also seriously wounded.
As a result of exposing this and various other warcrimes, Julian Assange faces a 175 year jail sentence if extradited to the US.
WikiLeaks @wikileaks
13 years ago today Julian Assange published the Collateral Murder video showing the killing over a dozen people in Iraq, including 2 @Reuters journalists, and seriously wounding 2 children He faces a 175 year sentence if extradited for truthful publishing collateralmurder.wikileaks.org
3:01 PM ∙ Apr 5, 2023
After the video was released one of the soldiers involved in the incident, Ethan McCord, shared the following:
The Pulse is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.“If you feel threatened in any way, you’re able to engage that person. Many soldiers felt threatened just by the fact that you were looking at them, so they fired their weapons on anybody that was looking at them because they (I) felt threatened. We were told if we were to fire on anybody, and if it were to be investigated, that ‘officers will take care of you.’ ”
“We were told by our battalion commander to kill every m***** f****** on the street. Many soldiers would not do that, we decided we were going to shoot into the rooftops of buildings because, if you didn’t fire, the NCOs in your platoon would make your life hell.”
“This happens on a daily basis, destroying vans full of children, the destruction of the Iraqi people happens on a daily basis.”
For those of you who don’t know, Assange is the founder of Wikileaks, an organization that obtained genuine classified documents from various sources. These documents exposed various war, environmental, financial and other crimes by multiple governments around the world, especially the United States.
They also revealed the corruption within the intimate relationships between big multinational corporations, whether it be pharmaceutical or big food companies, and agencies like the Food & Drug Administration (FDA). In short, many of these documents exposed unethical and immoral actions by powerful entities that are tasked to serve the people.
Assange was charged under the Espionage Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, largely for actions rightfully recognized as protected news-gathering practices.
Assange has been held in prison in the United Kingdom for several years, subjected to torturous treatment while the US attempts to to extradite him to face criminal charges.
Unprecedented Events
For the first time in history the US government has brought criminal charges against a publisher for the publication of truthful information. This establishes a dangerous precedent that can be used to target all news organizations that hold the government accountable by publishing its secrets. And it’s equally dangerous for journalists who uncover the secrets of other nations.Over the past few years we’ve seen an unprecedented amount of censorship of independent media outlets who present truthful information that calls into question government narratives. This effort continues to gain momentum and strength.
The Espionage Act was originally intended for use against spies, but it’s now being used against journalists and whistleblowers. These charges against Assange threaten to criminalize reporting in the United States and around the world.
Proponents of Assange’s extradition would argue that he threatened national security. We would argue, as would many others, that national security has become an umbrella term to censor information that exposes unethical and immoral actions of corporations and governments. It’s simply used as an excuse to justify these actions for ulterior motives, be it financial or political gain, while simultaneously deeming these actions as necessary and good for the collective.
When I write about Julian Assange I always like to share a hard-hitting quote from Nils Melzer, Human Rights Chair of the Geneva Academy of Int. Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, Prof of Int. Law at the University of Glasgow, UN Rapporteur on Torture and Other Inhumane or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
WikiLeaks’ threat to the powerful was recognized and every effort was and is being made to criminalize anonymous leaking, and basically make it extremely taboo to question big government on any major geopolitical/world issue.“How far have we sunk if telling the truth becomes a crime? How far have we sunk if we prosecute people that expose war crimes for exposing war crimes? How far have we sunk when we no longer prosecute our own war criminals? Because we identify more with them, than we identify with the people that actually expose these crimes. What does that tell about us and about our governments? In a democracy, the power does not belong to the government, but to the people. But the people have to claim it. Secrecy disempowers the people because it prevents them from exercising democratic control, which is precisely why governments want secrecy.”
At the heart of any meaningful action in our world is our ability to make sense of reality and unite on a direction. The problem we face in sense-making is breaking down as we are shutting out balanced inquiry and pretending that anyone who opposes an idea in the mainstream is just operating off of ‘misinformation.’ How can we even make sense of what’s going on in our world if there is no transparency?“Julian was just doing his job, which was to publish the truth about wrongdoing. His loyalty is the same as that which all journalists should have: to the public. Not to the spy agencies of a foreign power. He published evidence that the country that is trying to extradite him committed war crimes and covered them up; that it committed gross violations that killed tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children; that it tortured and rendered; that it bombed children, had death squads, and murdered Reuters journalists in cold blood; that it bribed foreign officials and bullied less powerful countries into harming their own citizens, and that it also corrupted allied nations’ judicial inquiries into US wrongdoing.”
- Stella Moris, Assange’s wife
MORE HERE: https://www.thepulse.one/p/13-years-ago-julian-assange-published?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1252422&post_id=112936649&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email
