Timely reminder that the indictment Assange faces has nothing to do with any 2016 releases and everything to do with the Trump administration's war on journalism as he is charged with publishing Afghanistan war logs, Iraq war logs, Iraq Rules of Engagement (needed to contextualise the Collateral Murder video they published at the same time), Guantanamo detainee briefs, and most embarrassingly US State Department cables. These files hold evidence of war crimes, corruption and torture, perpetrated not only by the US. Looks like the movement demanding the charges to be dropped has reached the upper echelons of US democracy which is good not only for Julian and his young family, but also for journalists world-wide and for everyone's ability to speak truth.
SLfgb
Now you sound even more like bigshot Mike. Are you him perchance? Was it your intention for the indictment to be littered with the words 'publish', 'published', 'publishing', 'public', 'publicly', 'publication'; 'disseminate', 'dissemination', 'redactions', 'redacting', 'redacted'?
Antidote101, you sound like former CIA head and Trump's state secretary Mike Pompeo, who in 2017 redefined WikiLeaks as a 'non-state hostile intelligence service, often abetted by state actors like Russia', before he got the CIA to draw up secret plans to have him kidnapped or killed.
The Biden administration is continuing Trump's war on journalism with this persecution.
"Julian Assange can be freed with a phone call. The government can ring up their colleagues in the United Kingdom and say, you know:
'send him home, his visa's expired and serve the expiration date notice on him. Anything that the United States wants we can handle here'.
That is a clear possibility."
"The 13 years we witnessed acquiescence to whatever the United States and the United Kingdom wanted to do to Julian."
"All of the people of Australia have bound together and brought into being a meme that spread into government, into parliament, into the congress, that Julian must be returned home. So it's our congratulations that Anthony Albanese says in Parliament: 'I see no benefit in this persecution continuing.' Well he doesn't say persecution. I'll help him out there."
"Julian Assange can be freed with a phone call. The government can ring up their colleagues in the United Kingdom and say, you know:
'send him home, his visa's expired and serve the expiration date notice on him. Anything that the United States wants we can handle here'.
That is a clear possibility."
"The 13 years we witnessed acquiescence to whatever the United States and the United Kingdom wanted to do to Julian."
"All of the people of Australia have bound together and brought into being a meme that spread into government, into parliament, into the congress, that Julian must be returned home. So it's our congratulations that Anthony Albanese says in Parliament: 'I see no benefit in this persecution continuing.' Well he doesn't say persecution. I'll help him out there."
I bet if the govt hadn't pinched their evidence and it had actually gone to trial, that would have been one of McBride's arguments; that it wasn't a lawful order as evidence of murder can't be classified. But that's what Dreyfuss's lackeys did with the approval of the judge.
How can you have a trial when the relevant evidence in defence is suppressed. You can't.
To hell with the Nuremberg Principle. Just follow your orders!
McBride's lawyer Davis said outside the court:
“It was the fatal blow made in conjunction with the decision made a few days ago that limits what we can say to the jury on David’s behalf in terms of what was his duty as an officer was on the oath he took to serve, as we say, the interests of the Australian people.
Well the ruling was, he doesn’t have a duty to serve the interests of the Australian people. He has a duty to follow orders. That is a very narrow understanding of the law in our view that takes us back really pre-World War II. We all know how military law has been judged since then in terms of compliance to follow orders.
So facing that reality, we’re limited in terms of what we could put to a jury in term’s of David’s duty … together with the removal of evidence makes it impossible, realistically, to go to trial. It is a sad day and a difficult day for us to advise David on his options this afternoon and he embraced them.”
McBride said: “I stand tall and I believe I did my duty and I don’t see it as a defeat, I see it as a beginning of a better Australia.”
UPDATE: David McBride has just plead guilty. https://twitter.com/CathyVoganSPK/status/1725373553011482853
Yes it is outrageous.
There a many in Australia who care about this a lot as is clear from the number of donors who raised funds for his legal defence. We need more people to talk about this. Buy his book The Nature of Honour, out this week and display it wherever you are. David will keep fighting from jail but we need to all fight for him. Talk to your MP. Demand the Attorney General intervene and drop this case.
Lounging at the beach?
If it weren't for WikiLeaks, Snowden would have been rotting in a US gaol for the past 10 years with no end in sight. WikiLeaks' Sarah Harrison accompanied Snowden from Hong Kong to safety. They were the only journalists to reach out to help Snowden.