by Binoy Kampmark |
Published: 00:00, 02 Oct 2021
IF THERE was any reason to stop a charade of legal proceedings, then the case against Julian Assange should be the standard example. Since last year, the US government’s efforts to press ahead with its extradition to the malevolent purgatory of the American judiciary have seen more than a whole host of obscene revelations. While United States prosecutors insist that the publisher must be at liberty for contradicting the provisions of the Espionage Act of 1917, the broader political elements remain intact.
From the moment When classified US documents were published with daring sovereignty on the WikiLeaks website, Assange was treated as a political target and scornfully condemned as a « cyber-terrorist » by Joe Biden (then Vice President). It didn’t matter that he had been granted political asylum by a foreign government or that he exposed the malevolent nature of the US war machine in foreign countries.
The central strategy of the outraged in the face of such exposure is traditionally blunt. Mock the publisher; distract attention from exposing the Empire’s bloody mischief. Before the court of public opinion, such an individual can be made queer and indigestible, motives destroyed, intentions destroyed. Outrageous inconsistencies in public disclosure can be dismissed as crank and discredited.
After Michael Pompeo took the reins of the CIA, WikiLeaks became a kind of obsession, fascinating given the sheer joy of Donald Trump at the publication of these democratic emails who riddled Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016, « he told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on April 13, 2017, » a non-state enemy intelligence agency that is often supported by state actors such as Russia. «
Such a perspective led to brazen efforts by the Spanish private security company UC Global, which was hired to supply surveillance equipment for the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to spy on Assange and his various colleagues and confidants CIA connected and pleased e themselves to be able to help them.
The extent of Morales’ zeal alarmed some former employees of the company, a point they made unreservedly expressed in the Old Bailey Trial last September. “Around June 2017, when I was looking for suppliers of the new camera equipment, David Morales instructed that the cameras should allow streaming capabilities so that, as Morales put it,“ our friends ”in the United States could have access the inside of the message in real time. I was very concerned about this request, and to make the request more difficult, I claimed that streaming remote access via the camera circuit was not technically feasible. « At the behest of the United States, to target Assange’s legal representative.
This was just the beginning. One of the witnesses (referred to as Witness 2 for convenience) revealed how Morales had asked him to « steal a diaper from a baby who, according to company security staff at the embassy, regularly visited Mr. Assange ». to determine whether it actually came from “a child of the asylum seeker”. It was « the Americans, » Morales claimed, « who wanted to establish paternity. » Frustrated by the lack of movement in the eviction of Assange from the embassy, US officials began to tease out options. According to the second witness, « the Americans [in December 2017] were desperate and had even suggested taking more extreme measures against the » guest « to end the situation of Assange’s stay at the embassy. » An « accident » was suggested which could be relied on to cover an operation « that would allow people outside the embassy to enter and kidnap the asylum seeker ». And just in case such a scenario shouldn’t unfold, another, more definitive proposal was put on the table: a manageable poisoning.
As is often the nature of the modern news cycle, such damnable revelations are a turning point into an otherwise more substantial, troubling story. It takes reports like the one from Yahoo! Messages to add a cool confirmation. Much meat is added to the narrative, for the merit of the authors. A former Trump national security official is quoted as claiming that the government « saw blood » after WikiLeaks released the Vault-7 files, a set of hacking tools developed by the CIA. « This extraordinary collection, which comprises more than several hundred million lines of code, » crowed WikiLeaks at the time in a press release, « gives its owner the entire hacking capacity of the CIA. »
But the interest in material about the organization in the intelligence community began earlier, inspired by Edward Snowden’s revelations in June 2013 about the National Security Agency’s commandless and far-reaching surveillance programs. Within the CIA, the Office of Transnational Issues was busy building up its own “WikiLeaks team”. The intelligence community has been busy trying to label the publishing company as something other than an « information broker ».
With the release of leaked Democratic Party emails, some intelligence officials have believed that Assange « was acting in concert with people who were exploiting him. » to harm the interests of the United States, « according to senior community attorney Robert Litt, palpable. When Trump settled in the White House, one counterintelligence official could only comment, « No one on this crew would get too upset about the issues of the First Amendment. » The Yahoo report is also filled with the wet dreams of teenagers Officials thinking about how the Australian might have done it. One of them was the prospect that Assange might be magically removed by Russian agents after he was granted diplomatic status by Ecuador. The scenarios consisted of crashing into a vehicle carrying Assange, snapping him up, and shooting at the tires of a plane that was supposed to take him to Moscow. “It was supposed to be like a prison break film,” a former high-ranking administrative officer dreamed with relish.
Outside the embassy, the area was full of haunted people and agents. « It went so far that everyone within a three-block radius worked for one of the secret services – regardless of whether they were a street sweeper, police officer or security guard. » -Enthusiasts got out of hand. The fairly obvious point was made by some NSC officials that such an operation would be illegal. « You can’t throw people in a car and kidnap people, » warned a former national security officer.
In spring 2017, an assassination attempt made it to the top of the queue as a possible cure. President Trump put out feelers for advice. « It was seen as out of joint and ridiculous, » a former senior CIA official reportedly said. Another claimed that those who proposed the idea « just spat, » all part of an atmosphere where Trump was just Trump. The spit balls in question lingered long enough to make rough sketches of the assassination of Assange and WikiLeaks members with access to the Vault 7 find.
Assange’s US attorney Barry Pollack wants this mess to come to a sensible conclusion leads. « My hope and expectation is that the British courts will take this information into account and further substantiate their decision not to extradite to the US. » Revelations. Assange’s defense team will do their best to thwart such efforts.
DissidentVoice.org, September 29th. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Fellow at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He teaches at RMIT University, Melbourne.
Editor: Nurul Kabir, edited by Chairman, Editorial Board ASM Shahidullah Khan
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