OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #128, MAY 31, 2023.

 

 OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #128, MAY 31,  2023.
Ben Norton.  Millions killed in US post-9/l1 wars.
Common Dreams.  US Supplied Weapons to Most Authoritarian Nations.
James Douglass.  JFK Murdered by

 

ATROCIOUS US POST-9/11 WARS

Ben Norton. “U.S. post-9/11 wars caused 4.5 million deaths, displaced 38-60 million people, study shows.”   Editor.  Mronline.org (5-23-23). 

Wars the U.S. waged in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan following September 11, 2001 caused at least 4.5 million deaths and displaced 38 to 60 million people, with 7.6 million children starving today, according to studies by Brown University.

 (Posted May 22, 2023).   Originally published: Geopolitical Economy Report  on May 18, 2023 (more by Geopolitical Economy Report)  | 

Empire, Human Rights, State Repression, WarAfghanistan, Americas, Asia, Iraq, Middle East, Pakistan, Syria, United States, YemenNewswireBrown University, Drones, U.S. Military

The wars the United States waged and fueled in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan following September 11, 2001 caused at least 4.5 million deaths, according to a report by Brown University.

Nearly a million of the people who lost their lives died in fighting, whereas some 3.6 to 3.7 million were indirect deaths, due to health and economic problems caused by the wars, such as diseases, malnutrition, and destruction of infrastructure.      These were the conclusions of a study conducted by the Cost of Wars project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.   The report also analyzed the effects of wars in Libya and Somalia, which were sponsored by Washington.

The scholars estimated that, in the countries studied, there are still today 7.6 million children under age 5 who are suffering from acute malnutrition, meaning they are “not getting enough food, literally wasting to skin and bones, putting these children at greater risk of death”.

In Afghanistan and Yemen, this includes nearly 50% of children; and, in Somalia, close to 60%.  MORE
https://mronline.org/2023/05/22/u-s-post-9-11-wars-caused-4-5-million-deaths-displaced-38-60-million-people-study-shows/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=u-s-post-9-11-wars-caused-4-5-million-deaths-displaced-38-60-million-people-study-shows&mc_cid=299fa0d3c7&mc_eid=ab2f7bf95e 

 

“US Sold Weapons to Roughly 60% of World's Authoritarian Nations in 2022: Analysis.”  Common Dreams. May 13, 2023.

 "These findings fly in the face of Biden's preferred framing of  international politics as a 'battle between democracies and autocracies,'" says the author of a new report.

 

JFK Murdered by Advocates of War

Eisenhower’s Farewell Address, JFK’s American University Address, the Test Ban Treaty, the Military Industrial Complex, National Security State, CIA, the Unspeakable, Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK and Krhushchev for peace, assassination of JFK, and understanding the Second Cold War.

James Douglass.  JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters.  Simon and Schuster, 2008, pp. 137 and 382.

“The political context of Kennedy’s assassination was described best” by President Eisenhower in his Farewell Address, Jan. 17, 1961.  “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence. . .by the military industrial complex.  The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”  “In the summer of 1963, the leaders of the military-industrial complex could see storm clouds on their horizon.  After JFK’s American University address and his quick signing of the Test Ban Treaty with Khrushchev, corporate power holders saw the distinct prospect in the not distant future of a settlement in the Cold War. . . .Both Kennedy and Khrushchev were prepared to shift their war of conflicting ideologies to more peaceful fronts. . . .In that direction of U.S.-Soviet disarmament lay the diminished power of a corporate military system that for years had controlled the United States government.  In his turn toward peace, Kennedy was beginning to undermine the dominant power structure that Eisenhower had finally identified and warned against so strongly as he left the White House.”(137).

The articles establishing the CIA in 1947 included the doctrine of “plausible deniability.”   In the name of national security, the CIA was authorized to commit unspeakable crimes “with no genuine accountability.”  The label “unspeakable” originated with Thomas Merton, Douglass’ mentor, defined as “an abyss of lies and deception.”

     “We encounter the void of the unspeakable at the heart of our national security state’s murder of President Kennedy.  And that is where the hope begins” (and Douglass’ radical originality is again demonstrated).   “In the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK had to confront the unspeakable in the form of total nuclear war” as advocated by “his generals,” and he “rejected their pressures for war.  Even worse, the president reached out to the enemy for help,” an appeal accepted by Nikita Khrushchev, and the enemies “joined hands against those on both sides pressuring them to attack.”   Kennedy was assassinated 13 months later, Khrushchev was overthrown a year later.  Peace instead of nuclear annihilation, and “today we are still living and struggling for peace.”  (382).   --  Dick

OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS, #129, MAY 29, 2023

 

OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS, #129, MAY 29, 2023

Stacy Bannerman    “Is Climate The Worst Casualty of War?”   Common
     Dreams, July 31, 2018.  (# 46, 9-15-18). Pub. also in Peace in Our Times (Fall 2018) p. 21.  Other writers on the convergence of war and cc:   Bertell, Chomsky and Polk, Dower, Dyer, Greer, Johnson, Maddow, Parenti, Paskal, Sanders, Smith and Vivekananda, Gar Smith, Wood.  

UN WARS OF WAR, WARMING, PANDEMIC CONVERGENCE
Jessica Corbett.  JESSICA CORBETT   “War and Climate Crisis Threaten Global Progress on Human Health, Warns UN Chief.”  Common Dreams (May 21, 2023). 
"We can return to the path of progress. We can realize our ambitions for health and well-being for all," said António Guterres. "But only if the world works together... despite the tensions straining relations between nations."
. . . .But now, "war and conflict threaten millions. The health of billions is endangered by the climate crisis. And the Covid-19 pandemic has stalled, and even reversed, progress in public health," the U.N. leader said in a video address kicking off the assembly. . . . https://www.commondreams.org/news/un-antonio-guterres-climate-war-health

 

I continue to return to magazines skimmed earlier.  E.g. The Nation, May 18, 2015.
Several articles on domination by money, individual profits, instead of public good—specifying malefactors, naming names, calling readers to act.
   Eric Alterman on “Invisible Plutocracy.”  Our democracy has been “severely corrupted by money,” the Republican Party promotes that condition, reporters offer a “fairy-tale narrative” of US as a “fully functioning democracy,” while little is “decided on its merits.”
   Zephyr Teachout on “Restoring Antitrust” (Sherman Antitrust Act).  Senators Elizabeth Warren, Al Franken (no longer in Senate), and Bernie Sanders “are creating a populist fighting force representing the broad grassroots demand that we break up big companies.”
Money profit through monopoly plus leads directly to the commission of the military-industrial-congressional-presidential-WAR complex (MICPC) and omission of meaningful resistance to global warming and climate change.
And We the People don’t have much time to PUSH necessary structural changes.   Dick 5-24-23

OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #127, MAY 24, 2023

 

 OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #127, MAY 24,  2023.  https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2023/05/omni-war-watch-wednesdays-127-may-24.html   Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology.

Our next monthly Nuclear War Protest is this Saturday, May 27^th at 11 A.M. at Washington County Courthouse in Fayetteville.

Abel Tomlinson.  5 Major Escalations Toward Nuclear War
In These Times.  Phyllis Bennis and Vijay Prashad Stand with MLKJR. against US Aggression.

5 Major Escalations Toward Nuclear War

Dear Friends,
At the upcoming protest, I’m thinking it would be a good idea to also highlight recent escalations of war with Russia and China that bring us closer and closer to the brink of nuclear war.  Please let me know if any other recent escalations come to mind.
             1.       For instance, the West, specifically  the UK with US support, has begun shipping Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine that enable attacks much deeper, range of 150  miles, into Russian territory.   
            2.       The United States has also recently just given a green light to its NATO allies, specifically the UK and     Netherlands, to begin providing nuclear-capable F16 fighter jets to Ukraine.  
           3.       We also recently witnessed drone attacks on the Kremlin, which Russia claims was an assassination attempt on Putin.  Although Kiev and the U.S. deny responsibility, its most likely some division of the Ukrainian government organized it.  Interestingly, Zelensky went on a sustained world tour after the attack, in what appears an avoidance of returning to Kiev and possible retaliatory assassination attempts by Russia.
          4.       The West, specifically the U.K. with the support of the U.S., has begun shipping poisonous depleted uranium weapons to Ukraine.  The details of this escalation are outlined here very well by Elizabeth Vos of Consortium News, who came to our last protest.  Additionally, there is considerable speculation that the recent Russian bombing of a major weapons depot in Khmelnytsk in West Ukraine, which caused a massive mushroom cloud explosion, could have included the NATO –supplied depleted uranium weapons.  If true, this would mean NATO, which “cares deeply about Ukrainians”, helped the West Ukrainian Government in Kiev poison its own people and lands, instead of poisoning East Ukrainians and their lands as intended.  
       5.       In terms of escalation of war with China, a leading Democratic Congressman Seth Moulton threatened that the U.S. may bomb Taiwan’s TSMC factory in order to hurt China. TSMC is the world’s largest semiconductor factory, and if attacked it would not just harm Taiwan and China, but also the entire global economy, and all the technological manufacturing dependent on semiconductors.  This kind of attack on a supposed ally nation to harm a chosen enemy nation is directly analogous to the Biden Administration bombing the Nordstream pipeline, which harmed its allies in Germany and all of the E.U. in order to harm its chosen enemy Russia.  A great analysis by journalist Danny Haiphong of this backfiring threat is here.
Abel Tomlinson

Attachments

 UK escalation, Storm Shadow long-range missiles to Ukraine
Massive explosion blows up missile-storing facility in Ukraine 
US Threatening Taiwan’s TSMC in War with China

OMNI’s WWW is an arm of the world peace movement, little reported by corporate media past and present.  (The US had 1200 peace organizations in 2001, the last time I counted them.) 
The following two essays appeared together in In These Times (Oct. 2017) under the umbrella title of “The U.S. Is Bombing at Least Six Countries.  How Can the Anti-War Movement Step Up?”

Phyllis Bennis.  “No Movement Is an Island.”
Bennis (long-time peacemaker, author of books including Understanding ISIS and New Global War on Terror: a Primer) urges us to stand with MLK Jr.’s call for a unified movement against “the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism [capitalism], and militarism.”  She adds, “as Dr. King surely would have, protection of the planet.”  With this ecological addition, King provides us with a comprehensive program of resistance to the US warfare state.

Vijay Prashad.  “No Parley with Liberal Interventionists” [reinforcing MLKJr].
Prashad (editor of LeftWord Books) wants the anti-war movement to assert “a strong position against the [bipartisan] warfare state” and “a clear anti-imperialist platform” that censures “the violence wrought by the U.S. government” with five policies for peace, including: investigating civilian casualties by US, ending CIA arms sales to right wing forces, and, preeminently, conversion of military industry to peaceful production (Camden!)..

 

 

OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS, #128, MAY 22, 2023

 

OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS, #128, MAY 22, 2023

Population Connection  Submit Your Reading Pick for the Next Book Club.   Engage.  May 17, 2023.
[All five of these books look highly worthwhile—from Attenborough’s autobiography, to protection of threatened species, to refugees, to a survival guide.   But I cite them especially to draw attention to Population Connection, which defends abortion AND vigorously advocates contraception, both in the context of climate change the variety of which is suggested by these 5 books.  PC is a comprehensive women’s and men’s organization you should know about.  --D]

Last week we hosted an engaging discussion with Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka for our Page Turners Book Club meeting. If you love reading and enjoy discussions with other passionate individuals, be sure to submit your vote for the book we will be discussing at our next meeting in August! Descriptions of the book options are listed below.

To submit your pick, please take this book selection poll no later than this Friday, May 19^th. We plan to announce the winning selection then, along with the date of the next meeting.

Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction by Michelle Nijhuis
Beloved Beasts is a richly informative history of the international conservation movement and the central figures who have played crucial roles in developing conservationism and moving conservation efforts forward.

A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future by David Attenborough
In this scientifically informed account of the changes in nature over the last century, award-winning broadcaster and natural historian David Attenborough shares a lifetime of wisdom and a hopeful vision for the future.

 

Nomad Century: How Climate Migration Will Reshape Our World by Gaia Vince

Many areas are experiencing drought and coastal regions are shrinking each year. The devastating effects of wildfires and hurricanes are becoming more frequent. The cause of these issues is widely accepted as climate change, yet we are not doing enough to address one of its major consequences - a complete transformation of human geography on Earth.

 

Living in the Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler

In his 2005 book, The Long Emergency, James Howard Kunstler described the global predicaments that would pitch the USA into political and economic turmoil in the 21st century—the end of affordable oil, climate irregularities, and flagging economic growth, to name a few. Now, he returns with a book that takes an up-close-and-personal approach to how real people are living now—surviving The Long Emergency as it happens.

 

Earth for All: A Survival Guide for Humanity by Sandrine Dixson-Decleve, Owen Gaffney, Jayati Ghosh, Jorgen Randers, Johan Rockstrom, and Per Espen Stoknes

Five decades ago, The Limits to Growth shocked the world by showing that population and industrial growth were pushing humanity towards a cliff. Today the world recognizes that we are now at the cliff edge: Earth has crossed multiple planetary boundaries while widespread inequality is causing deep instabilities in societies. In Earth for All, a leading group of scientists and economists from around the world present five extraordinary turnarounds to achieve prosperity for all within planetary limits in a single generation.

 

Thanks again for sharing your input, and we’ll reach out soon with more details on the next “Page Turners” meeting!   
All the Best,  Natalie and Stephanie
Membership Relations Team

Engage  May 19, 2023

Hi James R.,  The votes are in!

We will meet on Tuesday, August 1^st at 4 pm ET/1 pm PT to discuss Earth for All: A Survival Guide for Humanity by Sandrine Dixson-Decleve, Owen Gaffney, Jayati Ghosh, Jorgen Randers, Johan Rockstrom, and Per Espen Stoknes.

 

In Earth for All, a renowned collective of scientists and economists from across the globe unveil a compelling vision for our future. Building upon the revelations of The Limits to Growth, which rocked the world five decades ago, they now confront the stark reality: we stand precariously on the precipice of a global crisis.

Within the pages, the authors present a roadmap for change, proposing five key shifts that can lead humanity toward shared prosperity while respecting the limits of our planet. However, their argument that unequal resource distribution is driving our environmental crises, rather than overpopulation, is very misleading.  This will be an engaging discussion delving into the links between population dynamics, sustainable development, and economic systems.

If you have any questions about our upcoming book club meeting, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at engage@popconnect.org.

Best Regards,
Natalie and Stephanie
Membership Relations Team

 

“Climate breakdown, extinction and ‘the most stupid boast.’”  Originally published: Media Lens  on May 16, 2023 by DC (more by Media Lens)  |  (Posted May 18, 2023). 

[This is one passage from another of the truthtelling articles published in small magazines and republished or summarized in OMNI’s blog, “War and Warming,” revealing the corporate -government refusal to inform the public of the climate emergency, and the failure of mainstream media and journalists to expose the conspiracy.  I have highlighted a few passages, but the entire article deserves bold type.  The article is about the UK, but it applies equally well to the USofA.    Dick]

Crucially, there is little, if any, intense media scrutiny of how governments are doing so little to respond to the dire warnings of climate scientists. In fact, governments are actively making things worse by continuing to subsidise fossil fuel giants, even as they make record profits. Financial institutions are complicit too. In the last 12 months, the ‘Big 5’ UK high street banks—Barclays, HSBC, Santander, NatWest and Lloyds—gave $37 billion in loans to fossil fuel companies to expand production.

But when did you last see the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg grill a government minister, bank chief or corporate boss on climate? What about Andrew Marr? Robert Peston? Or any of the other media ‘big-hitters’? What about the BBC Radio 4 ‘Today’ programme? Channel 4 News? ITV News? Where are the Westminster news reports about Prime Ministers’ Questions pointing out that, once again, politicians are ignoring the climate crisis and mass extinction of species, including homo sapiens? Given the stakes for humanity, Westminster politics and political ‘journalism’ are simply a sham.

Take a look at the main channels’ daytime schedule, crammed with shows like ‘Scam Interceptors’, ‘Homes Under the Hammer’, ‘Bargain Hunt’, ‘Loose Women’, ‘Dickinson’s Real Deal’ and ‘Tipping Point’ (a game show that has an ironic title, given that we are now breaching climate tipping points). The public is being force-fed distracting ‘light entertainment’, while we should be fighting for our futures.

We are literally talking about the likely extinction of the human species if radical, large-scale global action is not taken now to turn away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy. We also need huge changes in agriculture, transportation, infrastructure, city and town planning, the economic and financial systems, and much more. A responsible, public-interest media would be analysing these issues with as much, if not more, passion and relentless attention as was given to the coronation of a king sitting atop an unjust, hugely-divided class system.

OMNI WIKILEAKS/ASSANGE ANTHOLOGY #17, MAY 21, 2023

 

 

 OMNI

WIKILEAKS/ASSANGE ANTHOLOGY #17,

MAY 21, 2023

US PERSECUTION OF PUBLISHER ASSANGE for TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT US WAR CRIMES

Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology

(#9 July 21, 2011; #10, Jan. 30, 2012, #11, May 25, 2018; #12, April 14, 2019; #13, Feb. 20, 2020; #14, Oct. 6, 2020; #15, Jan. 11, 2021; #16, Aug. 15, 2021).
HTTPS://omnicenter.org/donate/         

See separate Manning, Investigative Journalism, Whistleblower OMNI Constitution Anthologies, and more.

Special connection to the University of Arkansas is its Journalism Department with its Investigative Reporting (IRE) Student Travel Endowment, and UAF’s motto Veritate Duce Progredi:  “To advance with truth as our leader.”

 

CONTENTS #17 Indicting US Government, Defending Assange and Wikileaks  (2 books, 10 articles, 1interview)

Books
Stefania Maurizi.  Secret Power: WikiLeaks and Its Enemies.

Kevin Gosztola. Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case against Julian Assange.
Articles
3 Articles and 1 Interview by Chris Hedges
“Julian Assange —A Fight We Must Not Lose.” 
“The Incredible Accomplishments of Julian Assange That the US wants to torture him
      for.”
On Contact: Slow-Motion Execution Of Julian Assange
The Chris Hedges Report Show with Italian investigative journalist Stefania.
Articles by Caitlin Johnstone
 “Multiple U.S. officials confronted about U.S. Assange hypocrisy on World Press
      Freedom Day. 
 “Washington says “journalism is not a crime” while working to criminalize journalism.

More Defenders

John Pilger.  “The [Australian] Betrayers of Assange.” Condemnation of the Australian Government.
Daniel Ellsberg v. ESPIONAGE ACT.  “Losing 1st Amendment Reverses War of
     Independence.”
Jonathan Cook.  “Why the Western Media is Afraid of Julian Assange.”
Ellen Taylor.  “Will Belated Open Letter by The New York Times and other Media
     Outlets Be Enough to Compel Julian Assange’s Release From Prison?”
Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan.   “Assange Attorneys and Journalists Sue
     the CIA Over Spying.”

 

TEXTS

ASSANGE, WIKILEAKS #17

BOOKS

Stefania Maurizi.   Secret Power:  WikiLeaks and Its Enemies.  Pluto Press, London.  2020.  Foreword by Ken Loach.   Translated by Lesli Cavanaugh-Bardelli.

BUY

An uncovering of the terrifying depths of authoritarian power that hide behind the infamous story of WikiLeaks
Author Biography   Endorsements   Contents   Details

*Winner of the European Award for Investigative and Judicial Journalism 2021*
*Winner of the Premio Alessandro Leogrande Award for Investigative Journalism 2022*

'I want to live in a society where secret power is accountable to the law and to public opinion for its atrocities, where it is the war criminals who go to jail, not those who have the conscience and courage to expose them.'

It is 2008, and Stefania Maurizi, an investigative journalist with a growing interest in cryptography, starts looking into the little-known organisation WikiLeaks. Through hushed meetings, encrypted files and explosive documents, what she discovers sets her on a life-long journey that takes her deep into the realm of secret power.

Working closely with WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange and his organisation for her newspaper, Maurizi has spent over a decade investigating state criminality protected by thick layers of secrecy, while also embarking on a solitary trench warfare to unearth the facts underpinning the cruel persecution of Assange and WikiLeaks.

With complex and disturbing insights, Maurizi's tireless journalism exposes atrocities, the shameful treatment of Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, on up to the present persecution of WikiLeaks: a terrifying web of impunity and cover-ups.

At the heart of the book is the brutality of secret power and the unbearable price paid by Julian Assange, WikiLeaks and truthtellers.

 

 Kevin Gosztola.  Foreword by Abby Martin.

Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case against Julian Assange.  Seven Stories P, NYC, March 7, 2023.

See all formats and editions     Earn Kindle Points, get Kindle book credit.   Learn more.

From an acclaimed independent journalist, this carefully-documented analysis of the government’s case against Julian Assange and its implications for press freedom acts as a crucial, compelling guidebook to Assange’s upcoming trial.

Guilty of Journalism is a joint production of The Censored Press and Seven Stories Press.

The legal action against Julian Assange is poised to culminate in a trial in the United States in 2023, and this book will help the public understand the proceedings. The establishment media's coverage of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's extradition case has focused on his deteriorating health and what CBS News called his “secret family,” but most of this coverage failed to detail the complex issues at stake against Assange. Guilty of Journalism outlines how WikiLeaks exposed the reality of American wars, the United States government’s unprecedented indictment against Assange as a publisher, and the media’s role in persuading the public to “shoot the messenger.”

This new book by Kevin Gosztola, who has spent the last decade covering Assange, WikiLeaks, and the wider war on whistleblowers, tells the full story based on testimony from dozens of witnesses. It examines abuses of power by the CIA and the FBI, including a spying operation that targeted Assange’s family, lawyers, and doctors. Guilty of Journalism offers a balanced and comprehensive perspective on all the events leading up to what press freedom advocates have called the trial of the century.

Articles by Chris Hedges

Chris Hedges.  “Julian Assange —A Fight We Must Not Lose.”  Consortium News (5-9-23).   
“This legal lynching marks the official beginning of corporate totalitarianism” — from a talk the author gave at a rally in New York on World Press Freedom Day. Read here...

 

Chris Hedges.  “The Incredible Accomplishments of Julian Assange That the US wants to torture him for”.

This is an important article by Chris Hedges on the recent extradition hearing and the case of Julian Assange

WASHINGTON, D.C – For the past two days, I have been watching the extradition hearing for Julian Assange via video link from London. The United States is appealing a lower court ruling that denied the US request to extradite Assange not, unfortunately, because in the eyes of the court he is innocent of a crime, but because, as Judge Vanessa Baraitser in January concluded, Assange’s precarious psychological state would deteriorate given the “harsh conditions” of the inhumane US prison system, “causing him to commit suicide.” The United States has charged Assange with 17 counts under the Espionage Act and one count of trying to hack into a government computer, charges that could see him imprisoned for 175 years. [read more]

Please click here for more information on Assange’s Defense

On Contact: Slow-Motion Execution Of Julian Assange

By Chris Hedges, RT. Popular Resistance.org (12-27-21).   Julian Assange committed the empire’s greatest sin – he exposed it as a criminal enterprise. He documented its lies, callous disregard for human life, rampant corruption, and innumerable war crimes. Republican or Democrat, Conservative or Labour, Trump or Biden – it does not matter. The goons who oversee the empire sing from the same satanic songbook. Empires always kill those who inflict deep and serious wounds. Assange is in precarious physical and psychological health, and suffered a stroke during court video proceedings on October 27.    -more-

 

Hedges Interviews Stefania Maurizi
The Chris Hedges Report Show with Italian investigative journalist Stefania Maurizi, the only international report…

The Chris Hedges Report 2-3-23

 

	Open in app or online   The Chris Hedges Report Show with Italian investigative journalist Stefania Maurizi, the only international reporter who worked on the entirety of the WikiLeaks secret trove of leaked documents.   TRANSCRIPT The following is a rush transcription and may contain errors. An updated version will be made available as soon as possible.  [I have abridged the text considerably; click on title for its entirety.  –D] Chris Hedges: Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have carried out the most important investigative journalism of our generation, revealing to the public the inner workings of power through the release of luminous documents. .  . . . But talk a little bit about the global impact these revelations had. Stefania Maurizi: Well, of course, for the first time, if you are referring to the Afghan war logs, Iraq war logs, or the cables, all these files allowed for the first time to access to this information which was secret. So I mean, there was no way to obtain this information unless you got a copy after 25 years, 30 years, maybe 40 years when no one care anymore. Maybe the historians, the professional historians, care at that point, but it was no longer relevant for the public opinion to take informed decisions, of course. So that was the explosive part of this secret documentation. For the first time, we got access to secret information about how the Afghan war work, about the Iraq war, about the US diplomacy and their deals, their pressure, the political pressure, their crimes behind the scene. And we could get access as facts were still very relevant, not after 20 or 30 years or 40 years. And we could get access without the reductions. Because when you require request these documents using freedom of information. You often got completely redacted documents to an extent that they are useless. As a journalist or as a citizen, they have little use. So this information was really game changing, really allowed to take the public opinion, the decision they need. The information they need to take informed decision as citizens. Chris Hedges: I want to ask you about the 706,910 secret files of the Afghan wars. Before I do, just briefly tell us the importance of WikiLeaks in the Arab Spring and Tunisia and the importance of WikiLeaks in terms of Haiti. Those are two good examples of the impact WikiLeaks had. Stefania Maurizi: Yes, of course. I mean, when it comes to the WikiLeaks cables, for the first time, the citizens of these countries were information restricted, are unavailable. They could access the French assessment about their regimes by the US diplomacy. And while publicly the US diplomacy was conducting diplomacy as business as usual, but in the secrecy of their correspondence, they were absolutely not diplomatic at all about these regimes. So for the first time, this population could look at the reality of the regime and were vindicated. And this made them to react to this kind of information and to try to oppose their regime, to try to change their regime. And this is why Amnesty International has credited WikiLeaks and WikiLeaks cables with having an important role in the Arab Spring in these countries, of course. Chris Hedges: And Haiti, because it also exposed US interference in Haiti. I mean- Stefania Maurizi: Absolutely. Absolutely. Chris Hedges: I mean, a very concerted effort on the part of the US government to crush the labor movement, to break the movement to raise the minimum wage because they are all those sweatshops- Stefania Maurizi:  Of course. Chris Hedges:  Which are owned by US corporations.  Stefania Maurizi: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. And I mean, even if in the case of other countries, they didn’t unleash a revolution, they still unleash real important political awareness about the political interference, about the kind of crimes exposed by these documents, which could not be denied at this point, the kind of human rights violations, the kind of political pressure to grant impunity, for example, to the CIA. In the WikiLeaks cables, we got evidence, indisputable evidence, about political pressure on Italian authorities to grant impunity to the CIA agents responsible for the extraordinary rendition of Abu Amar. And of course, we could imagine that kind of political pressure. We could imagine that kind of political interference. Of course we could. But it is one matter to imagine. It is another matter to get evidence and to get their names and to get the conversation. That’s why these documents are important. And in fact, no one denied. No one even tried to file a libel case and say, “This is not true.”. . . . [Omitted is her account of the prosecution of CIA agents for the kidnapping of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr in Milan, reported by Wikileaks documents.]. As a result, none of these people [CIA agents] ended up in prison. None of these people basically have spent a single day in prison. And without the WikiLeaks documents, as I said, we could have imagined, but we could never have obtained the evidence, the solid evidence, the names, what they had discussed. And these cables are tremendously important to obtain this evidence of political pressure to grant impunity to the CIA. Chris Hedges: Let’s talk about the Afghan war logs and the Iraq War logs. The Iraq War logs has 391,832 secret files. Afghan war logs, 76,910 secret files. What did they reveal? Stefania Maurizi: They’re amazing document. Let me say, I worked so much on these documents. They are reports from the field, from the theater of war authored by the soldiers who were there. And basically, they provide a snapshot of the war. Whatever happened on the theater of war from January 2004 to December 2009. So six years of war described without any filter, without any propaganda. So at that point, you could see the war as it is on the entire theater of war and you could compare what the propaganda machine was telling to the public and what was really happening. And that’s the real value of this document. The value, of course, is what they reveal. The number of civilians, innocent civilians who were killed and the secret units like Taskforce 373. But the value here is that, for the first time, we could see these wars as they were as they were happening. Not after 30 years, after 40 years. And never before, with the exception of the Pentagon Papers leaked by Daniel Ellsworth, never before it had been possible to look at the war as it is ongoing and having this access to secret information about what was going on. These are tremendously important document, and to this day, they remain the only source. If you take the Afghan war logs, for example, they remain the only public source about the killing, extra judicial killing. And the only source about the innocent civilians kill before 2007.   [Most of the interview follows, don’t miss it.  –Dick]

 

Articles by Caitlin Johnstone

Caitlin A. Johnstone.  Multiple U.S. officials confronted about U.S. Assange hypocrisy on World Press Freedom Day.  Mronline.org (5-6-23).

Assange exposed many things about our rulers during his work with WikiLeaks, but none of those revelations have been as significant as what he’s forced them to reveal about themselves in the lengths that they will go to silence a journalist who tells inconvenient truths.

Caitlin A. Johnstone.  Washington says “journalism is not a crime” while working to criminalize journalism.  Mronline.org (4-11-23).

After a certain point criticizing the hypocrisy and contradictions of the U.S.-centralized empire starts to feel too easy, like shooting fish in a barrel. But hell let’s do it anyway; the barrel’s right here, and I really hate these particular fish.

 

MORE DEFENDERS

John Pilger’s Condemnation of the Australian Government in Sydney 10 Mar 2023.

TRANSCEND Media Service.   10 Mar 2023 – Australia, the ultimate betrayer of Julian Assange.    Read more...    MARCH 10, 2023

JOHN PILGER.  “The Betrayers of Assange.”     FacebookTwitterRedditEmail

Photograph Source: Ministerio de Cultura de la Nación Argentina – Videoconferencia con Julián Assange – Foro Cultura Digital – CC BY-SA 2.0 . . . . [Dick’s abridgement of an abridgement.]

Alas, my daydream about Australia doing right by Julian has reached its limits. The teasing of hope by [Prime Minister] Albanese is now close to a betrayal for which the historical memory will not forget him, and many will not forgive him. What, then, is he waiting for?

Remember that Julian was granted political asylum by the Ecuadorean government in 2013 largely because his own government had abandoned him. That alone ought to bring shame on those responsible: namely the Labor government of Julia Gillard.

So eager was Gillard to collude with the Americans in shutting down WikiLeaks for its truth telling that she wanted the Australian Federal Police to arrest Assange and take away his passport for what she called his ‘illegal’ publishing. The AFP pointed out that they had no such powers: Assange had committed no crime.

It is as if you can measure Australia’s extraordinary surrender of sovereignty by the way it treats Julian Assange. Gillard’s pantomime grovelling to both houses of the US Congress is  cringing theatre on YouTube. Australia, she repeated, was America’s ‘great mate’. Or was it ‘little mate’?

Her foreign minister was Bob Carr, another Labor machine politician whom WikiLeaks exposed as an American informant, one of Washington’s useful boys in Australia. In his published diaries, Carr boasted knowing Henry Kissinger; indeed the Great Warmonger invited the foreign minister to go camping in the California woods, we learn.

Australian governments have repeatedly claimed that Julian has received full consular support, which is his right. When his lawyer Gareth Peirce and I met the Australian consul general in London, Ken Pascoe, I asked him, ‘What do you know of the Assange case.’

‘Just what I read in the papers,’ he replied with a laugh.

[Part II]. . . .

On Julian Assange, the Prime Minister has two faces. One face teases us with hope of his intervention with Biden that will lead to Julian’s freedom. The other face ingratiates itself with ‘POTUS’ and allows the Americans to do what they want with its vassal: to lay down targets that could result in catastrophe for all of us.

Will Albanese back Australia or Washington on Julian Assange? If he is ‘sincere’, as the more do-eyed Labor Party supporters say, what is he waiting for? If he fails to secure Julian’s release, Australia will cease to be sovereign. We will be little Americans. Official.

This is not about the survival of a free press. There is no longer a free press. There are refuges in the samizdat, such as this site. The paramount issue is justice and our most precious human right: to be free.

This is an abridged version of an address by John Pilger in Sydney on 10 March to mark the launch in Australia of Davide Dormino’s sculpture of Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, and Edward Snowden, ‘figures of courage’.

John Pilger can be reached through his website: www.johnpilger.com

https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/03/10/the-betrayers-of-assange/       

 

Daniel Ellsberg v. ESPIONAGE ACT

Losing 1st Amendment reverses War of Independence

Editor.  Mronline.org (1-29-23). 

Daniel Ellsberg says using the Espionage Act against journalist Julian Assange in blatant violation of the First Amendment means the First Amendment is essentially gone.

 

Why the western media is afraid of Julian Assange

Jonathan Cook.  Mronline.org (2-1-23).

The shared desire of the security services and the corporate media is to disappear Assange in the hope that his revolutionary model of journalism is abandoned or forgotten for good.

 

 

 

CovertAction Magazine via gmail.mcsv.net	11:57 AM (3 hours ago)
Ellen Taylor.   “Will Belated Open Letter by The New York Times and other Media Outlets Be Enough to Compel Julian Assange’s Release From Prison?”  CovertAction Magazine.  Dec 12, 2022 12:32 pm.   Or will vindictive elites exposed as war criminals in documents Assange released and who engaged in deep-reaching smear campaign directed against him try to lock up the heroic truth-teller forever? On November 28, The New York Times, Der Spiegel, The Guardian, Le Monde and El Pais sent an Open Letter to the world, stating that the “U.S. government should end its prosecution of Julian Assange for publishing secrets.” This letter is unforgivably late. Julian has been buried alive for more than a decade. From all reports he is in terrible condition. Of course, in this country, we have become tolerant of interminable prison sentences, only discovering the innocence of the victims long after their lives have been destroyed. In the letter, these “papers of record” make no mention of their part in the destruction of this human being. They even have the gall to remind us of their own reservations regarding Julian’s case, questions about redactions and hacking, issues which were definitively put to rest years ago, during trials, hearings and recanted testimony. Moreover, they themselves participated in the smear campaign, which turned Julian into a pariah, neglected and rotting away in hideous conditions which have been identified by the UN as torture.  […] Read in browser »   Assange Attorneys and Journalists Sue the CIA Over Spying AUGUST 18, 2022 By Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan https://www.democracynow.org/2022/8/18/assange_attorneys_and_journalists_sue_the “Journalists are allowed to request documents that have been stolen and to publish those documents.” So wrote U.S. federal Judge John Koeltl in a 2019 opinion dismissing a lawsuit filed by the Democratic National Committee against Julian Assange, Wikileaks and others. Assange published documents on the Wikileaks website in the very manner the judge described. Despite this, Julian Assange has been in solitary confinement in Britain’s maximum security Belmarsh prison for over three years. Before that, he spent seven years living in the cramped Ecuadorian embassy in London. Ecuador granted Assange political asylum as he faced mounting persecution from the U.S. government for his role in exposing U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. is seeking Assange’s extradition from the United Kingdom to face espionage and conspiracy charges and up to 175 years in prison. Assange’s legal team is appealing the U.K.’s approval of the extradition request. Meanwhile, a new case related to Wikileaks is before Judge Koeltl: journalists and several of Assange’s attorneys have sued the Central Intelligence Agency and former CIA Director Mike Pompeo, alleging the CIA spied on them when they visited Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy, recording conversations and secretly copying their phones and laptops. “I’m a New York lawyer,” Deborah Hrbek, an attorney who met with Assange at the embassy several times, said at a news conference announcing the lawsuit. “I have the right to assume that the U.S. government is not listening to my private and privileged conversations with my clients, and that information about other clients and cases I may have on my phone or laptop are secure from illegal government intrusion. This is not just a violation of our constitutional rights. This is an outrage.” CIA spying on Julian Assange and his visitors became public through a Spanish court case against a company, UC Global, and its director, David Morales. UC Global was hired by Ecuador in 2012 to provide security for its embassy in London. The CIA, the new lawsuit alleges, recruited UC Global in January 2017, with the help of the late casino billionaire and Republican donor Sheldon Adelson, when Morales was at a gun convention in Las Vegas. Morales returned to Spain and, according to the lawsuit, told his employees that “the company would now be operating ‘in the big league’ and for the ‘dark side’ with the CIA.” Donald Trump had been a big fan of Wikileaks during the 2016 campaign, after the site published thousands of emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee and from Hillary Clinton and members of her inner circle. “WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks,” Trump said in a speech in October. Then, in March, 2017, Wikileaks published “Vault 7,” leaked CIA information that the agency itself later admitted was “the largest data loss in CIA history.” Shortly after the first tranche of Vault 7 documents was published, Mike Pompeo blasted Wikileaks in his first public speech as Trump’s new CIA Director: “WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service…It overwhelmingly focuses on the United States, while seeking support from anti-democratic countries and organizations. It’s time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is: a nonstate hostile intelligence service.” Last year, Yahoo News exposed a 2017 CIA plot to kidnap and possibly kill Julian Assange while in the Ecuadorian embassy. Yahoo reported that the plot was discussed “at the highest levels of the Trump administration.” Plots to assassinate a publisher, warrantless surveillance of private conversations and secret duplication of attorneys’ and journalists’ private electronic devices all echo the notoriously criminal conduct of the Nixon administration in the early 1970s. Back then, the target was whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg who leaked The Pentagon Papers, a secret history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam that detailed the extent to which successive U.S. administrations lied to the public about the war. Dan Ellsberg was charged with espionage and faced life in prison. President Nixon’s obsession with leaks led him to order the burglary of Ellberg’s psychiatrist’s office, starting the chain of events that led to the Watergate scandal and Nixon’s resignation. When the presiding judge in Ellsberg’s trial learned of the government’s illegal conduct, he dismissed the case. Fifty years later, First Amendment protections for publishers of government secrets, illegal CIA spying and more are before a federal judge again. Judge John Koeltl, as a young lawyer, served on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force. Now presiding over this case, filed by journalists and Assange’s attorneys, expect more CIA criminality to come to light. President Biden and his Justice Department should immediately drop all charges against Julian Assange. CONTENTS: WIKILEAKS/ASSANGE NEWSLETTER #16, August 15, 2021 https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2021/08/omni-wikileaksassange-newsletter-16.html     Introduction by Janine Jackson Interviewing Chip Gibbons Comparison: Daniel Hale to Be Sentenced July 27, 2021 under Espionage Act And Nazi Courts And British Justice Corporate Media Underreports Lying by Gov. Witness Marion Tichenor’s Letter Supporting Assange and Whistleblowers Corporate Media Lying by Omission 6 BOOKS ON OR BY ASSANGE FROM OR BOOKS Assange Still in Jail Julian Is Suffering: His Family in US: Amy Goodman Interviews Assange’s Father and Brother Common Dreams Interviews Father and Brother John Pilger, “The Stalinist Trial of Julian Assange”   END ASSANGE/WIKILEAKS ANTHOLOGY #17