Foreign Policy Category Archive

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Trump's Unpardonable Pardons

Another disgraceful performance from “Israel’s president”

Philip Giraldi • January 26, 2021

• 1,700 Words • 214 Comments • Reply

One keeps hearing that former President Donald Trump will be judged well by the history books because he was the only American head of state in recent memory who did not start any new wars. Well, the claim is itself questionable as Jimmy Carter, for all his faults, managed to avoid entering into any new... Read More

How the Left Is Being Manipulated Into Colluding in Its Own Character Assassination

Jonathan Cook • January 8, 2021

• 1,200 Words • 23 Comments • Reply

There was a fascinating online panel discussion on Wednesday night on the Julian Assange case that I recommend everyone watch. The video is at the bottom of the page. But from all the outstanding contributions, I want to highlight a very important point made by Yanis Varoufakis that has significance for understanding current events well... Read More

The US and UK May Not Will Assange’s Death, But Everything They Are Doing Makes It More Likely

Jonathan Cook • January 7, 2021

• 1,900 Words • 5 Comments • Reply

There was a hope in some quarters after Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled on Monday against an application to extradite Julian Assange to the US, where he faced being locked away for the rest of his life, that she might finally be changing tack. Washington has wanted Assange permanently silenced and made an example of –... Read More

The Assange Saga: Practicing Real Journalism Is Criminally Insane

Pepe Escobar • January 7, 2021

• 800 Words • 8 Comments • Reply

Synchronicity is definitely fond of mirror wonderwalls. The Julian Assange saga seemed to have entered a new chapter as he was, in thesis, on his way to – conditional - freedom this past Monday, only one day after the first anniversary of the start of the Raging Twenties: the assassination of Maj Gen Qassem Soleimani.... Read More

What Julian Assange’s Win Today Really Means for the World

Patrick Cockburn • January 5, 2021

• 1,000 Words • 14 Comments • Reply

The 10-year campaign by the US government to criminalise reporting critical of its actions has failed in rather peculiar circumstances, with the unexpected decision by the court in London to reject the US demand for Julian Assange's extradition. Judge Vanessa Baraitser gave as the reason for her decision Assange’s mental health and possible suicide risk,... Read More

Assange Wins. the Cost: Press Freedom Is Crushed, and Dissent Labelled Mental Illness

Jonathan Cook • January 4, 2021

• 1,300 Words • 105 Comments • Reply

The unexpected decision by Judge Vanessa Baraitser to deny a US demand to extradite Julian Assange, foiling efforts to send him to a US super-max jail for the rest of his life, is a welcome legal victory, but one swamped by larger lessons that should disturb us deeply. Those who campaigned so vigorously to keep... Read More

A Pardoning Time of Year

Will the president do the right thing?

Philip Giraldi • December 29, 2020

• 1,700 Words • 137 Comments • Reply

The resistance to the apparent election of Joe Biden as President of the United States is continuing to play out. Current President Donald Trump is continuing to fight against the presumed results of the November national election with his final card appearing to be a vote in Congress when it reconvenes on January 6th to... Read More

Trump Pardons Flynn…It’s a Good Start!

Ron Paul • November 30, 2020

• 600 Words • 11 Comments • Reply

Last week President Trump granted a “full pardon” to Gen. Michael Flynn, his first National Security Advisor. In a White House statement announcing the pardon, the Administration pointed out that the relentless pursuit of Flynn was a partisan effort to overturn the results of the 2016 election. The pursuit of Flynn was spearheaded by people... Read More

'Iraq War Diaries' At Ten Years: Truth Is Treason

Ron Paul • October 26, 2020

• 500 Words • 36 Comments • Reply

The purpose of journalism is to uncover truth – especially uncomfortable truth – and to publish it for the benefit of society. In a free society, we must be informed of the criminal acts carried out by governments in the name of the people. Throughout history, journalists have uncovered the many ways governments lie, cheat,... Read More

George Monbiot’s Excuses for Not Speaking Out Loudly in Defence of Assange Simply Won’t Wash

Jonathan Cook • October 6, 2020

• 3,700 Words • 11 Comments • Reply

Faced with a barrage of criticism from some of his followers, George Monbiot, the Guardian’s supposedly fearless, leftwing columnist, offered up two extraordinarily feeble excuses this week for failing to provide more than cursory support for Julian Assange over the past month, as the Wikileaks founder has endured extradition hearings in a London courtroom. The... Read More

The Assange Extradition Case Is an Exceptional Attack on Press Freedom

Patrick Cockburn • October 3, 2020

• 1,300 Words • 26 Comments • Reply

The silence of journalists in Britain and the US over the extradition proceedings against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is making them complicit in the criminalisation of newsgathering by the American government. In an Old Bailey courtroom in London over the past four weeks, lawyers for the US government have sought the extradition of Assange to... Read More

The Guardian’s Deceit-riddled New Statement Betrays Both Julian Assange and Journalism

Jonathan Cook • September 27, 2020

• 2,200 Words • 25 Comments • Reply

In my recent post on the current hearings at the Old Bailey over Julian Assange’s extradition to the United States, where he would almost certainly be locked away for the rest of his life for the crime of doing journalism, I made two main criticisms of the Guardian. A decade ago, remember, the newspaper worked... Read More

British Ambassador Craig Murray Exposes the Corrupt and Censored Assange Extradition Hearing

Paul Craig Roberts • September 25, 2020

• 900 Words

Ambassador Murray is upfront: “I strongly expect the final decision was made in this case even before opening arguments were received.” Although the hearing is being conducted in a British court, the US government has controlled the hearing and has determined what evidence could be presented: “The plan of the US Government throughout has been... Read More

The Murder of the First Amendment

Paul Craig Roberts • September 24, 2020

• 1,200 Words

The illegal and unwarranted prosecution of Julian Assange by the US Government in a British court, if court it is and not a Star Chamber, is in fact the prosecution of the First Amendment. It will prevent journalists in the future from informing the public of criminal activity by government. This is already the case... Read More

The US Is Using the Guardian to Justify Jailing Assange for Life. Why Is the Paper So Silent?

Jonathan Cook • September 22, 2020

• 5,200 Words • 89 Comments • Reply

Julian Assange is not on trial simply for his liberty and his life. He is fighting for the right of every journalist to do hard-hitting investigative journalism without fear of arrest and extradition to the United States. Assange faces 175 years in a US super-max prison on the basis of claims by Donald Trump’s administration... Read More

The War on Assange Is a War on Truth

Ron Paul • September 21, 2020

• 500 Words • 15 Comments • Reply

It is dangerous to reveal the truth about the illegal and immoral things our government does with our money and in our name, and the war on journalists who dare reveal such truths is very much a bipartisan affair. Just ask Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who was relentlessly pursued first by the Obama Administration and... Read More

The Julian Assange Trial: the Mask of Empire Has Fallen

Pepe Escobar • September 18, 2020

• 1,300 Words • 101 Comments • Reply

The concept of “History in the making” has been pushed to extremes when it comes to the extraordinary public service being performed by historian, former UK diplomat and human rights activist Craig Murray. Murray - literally, and on a global level – is now positioned as our man in the public gallery, as he painstakingly... Read More

Julian Assange, Prometheus Bound

He is being punished not for stealing fire – but for exposing power under the light of truth and provoking the god of...

Pepe Escobar • September 8, 2020

• 600 Words • 17 Comments • Reply

This is the tale of an Ancient Greek tragedy reenacted in AngloAmerica. Amid thundering silence and nearly universal indifference, chained, immobile, invisible, a squalid Prometheus was transferred from the gallows for a show trial in a faux Gothic court built on the site of a medieval prison. Kratos, impersonating Strength, and Bia, impersonating Violence, had... Read More

For Years, Journalists Cheered Assange’s Abuse. Now They’ve Paved His Path to a US Gulag

Jonathan Cook • September 2, 2020

• 3,100 Words • 132 Comments • Reply

Court hearings in Britain over the US administration’s extradition case against Julian Assange begin in earnest next week. The decade-long saga that brought us to this point should appall anyone who cares about our increasingly fragile freedoms. A journalist and publisher has been deprived of his liberty for 10 years. According to UN experts, he... Read More

Should We be Protesting About George Floyd or Julian Assange?

Paul Craig Roberts • July 31, 2020

• 2,700 Words

Some Americans are so pathetic they don’t even know what gender they are. A female with a vagina thinks she is a male. A male with testicles and a penis thinks he is a female. Those among us who are normal are supposed to be oh-so-concerned about these confused people that we stop using gender... Read More

Julian in the Dock

Israel Shamir • March 12, 2020

• 1,900 Words • 97 Comments • Reply

Julian Assange’s extradition hearing has had very little media coverage. Even The Guardian and The New York Times barely mentioned it, though these newspapers made a fortune publishing Assange-provided cables. Unless you had been looking for it, you wouldn’t even know that on February 24 to 27, the first stage of Assange’s extradition hearing was... Read More

Podcast: Kevin Gosztola Discusses the Latest Developments in the Case Against Julian Assange

Mnar Muhawesh and Whitney Webb • March 5, 2020

• 500 Words • Leave a Comment

elcome to MintCast, the official weekly MintPress News podcast hosted by Mnar Muhawesh and Whitney Webb that re-launched in February 2020. MintCast is an interview podcast featuring dissenting voices, independent researchers and journalists who the establishment would rather silence. One such voice is independent journalist and editor of ShadowProof, Kevin Gosztola. He joins MintCast to... Read More

Your Man in the Public Gallery – Assange Hearing

Craig Murray • March 2, 2020

• 12,400 Words • 2 Comments • Reply

Woolwich Crown Court is designed to impose the power of the state. Normal courts in this country are public buildings, deliberately placed by our ancestors right in the centre of towns, almost always just up a few steps from a main street. The major purpose of their positioning and of their architecture was to facilitate... Read More

Seth Rich, Julian Assange and Dana Rohrabacher. Credit: Public domain/Gage Skidmore/ Flickr

Seth Rich, Julian Assange and Dana Rohrabacher - Will We Ever Know the Truth About the Stolen DNC Files?

Philip Giraldi • February 29, 2020

• 1,500 Words • 256 Comments • Reply

The media is doing its best to make the Seth Rich story go away, but it seems to have a life of its own, possibly due to the fact that the accepted narrative about how Rich died makes no sense. In its Iatest manifestation, it provides an alternative explanation for just how the information from... Read More

Assange Extradiction: Can a French Touch Pierce a Neo-Orwellian Farce?

Pepe Escobar • February 27, 2020

• 1,700 Words • 29 Comments • Reply

By offering asylum to the persecuted publisher of WikiLeaks, France’s Macron would enhance his status in myriad European latitudes and all across the Global South. It’s quite fitting that the – imperially pre-determined – judicial fate of Julian Assange is being played out in Britain, the home of George Orwell. As chronicled by the painful,... Read More

Trump’s Betrayal of Julian Assange

Ron Paul • February 24, 2020

• 500 Words • 20 Comments • Reply

One thing we’ve learned from the Trump Presidency is that the “deep state” is not just some crazy conspiracy theory. For the past three years we’ve seen that deep state launch plot after plot to overturn the election. It all started with former CIA director John Brennan’s phony “Intelligence Assessment” of Russian involvement in the... Read More

With WikiLeaks, Julian Assange Did What All Journalists Should Do

Patrick Cockburn • February 22, 2020

• 1,200 Words • 26 Comments • Reply

I was in Kabul in 2010 when Julian Assange and WikiLeaks first released a vast archive of classified US government documents, revealing what Washington really knew about what was happening in the world. I was particularly interested in one of these disclosures, which came in the shape of a video that the Pentagon had refused... Read More

Who Spied on Julian Assange?

There are many possible suspects

Philip Giraldi • December 10, 2019

• 1,700 Words • 108 Comments • Reply

The Julian Assange drama drags on. Though he continues to sit in a top security British prison awaiting developments in his expected extradition to the United States, the Spanish High Court has been given permission to interview him. Assange is claiming that the Spanish company contracted with by the Ecuadorean government to do embassy security... Read More

Killing Julian Assange: Justice Denied When Exposing Official Wrongdoing

Philip Giraldi • October 31, 2019

• 1,200 Words • 203 Comments • Reply

The hideous treatment of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange continues and many observers are citing his case as being symptomatic of developing “police state” tendencies in both the United States and in Europe, where rule of law is being subordinated to political expediency. Julian Assange was the founder and editor-in-chief of the controversial news and information... Read More

We Must Act Now to Save Julian Assange and the Rule of Law

Paul Craig Roberts • October 27, 2019

• 400 Words

Dear Readers: If the millions who read my website will sign this petition with their name and their country, you will have made an effort to save Julian Assange from death at the hands of the Anglo-American criminal gang who are determined to remove the accountability of government to law and to the people. The... Read More

The End of Accountable Government Is Close at Hand

Paul Craig Roberts • October 27, 2019

• 500 Words

For about 70 years the CIA has been undermining a free press. It began with Operation Mockingbird, a Cold War operation against communism. The CIA recruited journalists into a propaganda network. The CIA paid journalists to write fake stories or to publish stories written by the CIA in order to control explanations that served the... Read More

Assange in Court

Craig Murray • October 22, 2019

• 2,500 Words • 53 Comments • Reply

I was deeply shaken while witnessing yesterday’s events in Westminster Magistrates Court. Every decision was railroaded through over the scarcely heard arguments and objections of Assange’s legal team, by a magistrate who barely pretended to be listening. Before I get on to the blatant lack of fair process, the first thing I must note was... Read More

The Snowden Conundrum

Yvonne Lorenzo • September 20, 2019

• 5,400 Words • 125 Comments • Reply

Have you ever had the pleasure of dealing with an agent of the Federal government? For example, have you been audited by the IRS? Did you notice what the “Agent” does to gain access to his (or her) computer—by inserting a “Smart ID” into a slot? Did you ask how your personal information is protected... Read More

The Torture of Julian Assange

Paul Craig Roberts • July 1, 2019

• 700 Words

In a few days July 4th will be upon us. We will hear endless nonsense from insouciant speakers and editorialists about what a great democracy we are, having won our freedom from being a British colony. One thing the United States most certainly is not is a democracy. A democracy requires an informed electorate, and... Read More

Hacking Dirty Government Secrets Is Not a Crime

Ted Rall • June 7, 2019

• 800 Words • 1 Comment • Reply

British goon cops acting at the request of the United States government entered Ecuador's embassy in London, dragged out WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and prepared to ship him across the pond. After this event last month, most of the mainstream media reacted with spiteful glee about Assange's predicament and relief that the Department of Justice... Read More

Hey Trump: Remember Wikileaks?

Ron Paul • June 3, 2019

• 500 Words • 10 Comments • Reply

Last week in an episode of my daily Ron Paul Liberty Report we discussed whether the US and British government were actually trying to kill jailed Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange. More than seven years ago Assange was granted asylum from the government of Ecuador over fears that espionage charges were being prepared against him by... Read More

This Is Why America Is Persecuting Julian Assange

Patrick Cockburn • May 31, 2019

• 1,200 Words • 15 Comments • Reply

I was in Kabul a decade ago when Wikileaks released a massive tranche of US government documents about the conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen. On the day of the release, I was arranging by phone to meet an American official for an unattributable briefing. I told him in the course of our conversation what... Read More

Endless Procedural Abuses Show Julian Assange Case Was Never About Law

Jonathan Cook • May 29, 2019

• 2,500 Words • 57 Comments • Reply

It is astonishing how often one still hears well-informed, otherwise reasonable people say about Julian Assange: “But he ran away from Swedish rape charges by hiding in Ecuador’s embassy in London.” That short sentence includes at least three factual errors. In fact, to repeat it, as so many people do, you would need to have... Read More

The Assange/Manning Cases Have Discredited America

The rule of law has given way to law as a weapon in the hands of government

Paul Craig Roberts • May 20, 2019

• 2,200 Words

Everyone who is aware of the US government’s extraordinary criminal actions at home and abroad bears a heavy weight. The millions of peoples murdered, maimed, orphaned, widowed, and displaced by gratuitous American military aggression comprise a Holocaust of deaths based entirely on lies and false accusations in order to advance secret American and Israeli agendas.... Read More

Julian Assange Sentenced to 50 Weeks in Jail for Bail Violation in Vindictive Political Ruling

Robert Stevens • May 1, 2019

• 1,300 Words • 21 Comments • Reply

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was sentenced to 50 weeks imprisonment in a show trial Wednesday at Southwark Crown Court. Assange has been incarcerated in London’s Belmarsh prison, in conditions amounting to solitary confinement and without access to visitors, following his illegal seizure April 3 from the Ecuadorian embassy. The sentence on bail charges is just... Read More

The Deep State vs. WikiLeaks

Pepe Escobar • April 19, 2019

• 1,100 Words • Leave a Comment

The Made by FBI indictment of Julian Assange does look like a dead man walking. No evidence. No documents. No surefire testimony. Just a crossfire of conditionals. But never underestimate the legalese contortionism of US government (USG) functionaries. As much as Assange may not be characterized as a journalist and publisher, the thrust of the... Read More

The Fake Charge Against Julian Assange Proves That the US Government Has No Integrity

Paul Craig Roberts • April 15, 2019

• 2,200 Words

Let’s be sure that we understand that Assange is not charged with anything related to Russia or Russiagate or even with breaking a law. Assange is charged with being in a conspiracy with Manning “to commit computer intrusion.” The charge is not that Assange succeeded in hacking a government computer and obtaining classified information. It... Read More

Uncle Tom's Empire

C.J. Hopkins • April 15, 2019

• 1,500 Words • 119 Comments • Reply

I don’t normally do this kind of thing, but, given the arrest of Julian Assange last week, and the awkward and cowardly responses thereto, I felt it necessary to abandon my customary literary standards and spew out a spineless, hypocritical “hot take” professing my concern about the dangerous precedent the U.S. government may be setting... Read More

Julian Assange: Political Prisoner

Ron Paul • April 15, 2019

• 600 Words • 10 Comments • Reply

Last week’s arrest of Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange by the British government on a US extradition order is an attack on all of us. It is an attack on the US Constitution. It is an attack on the free press. It is an attack on free speech. It is an attack on our right to... Read More

Accusing Assange of Being a 'Narcissist' Misses the Point

Patrick Cockburn • April 13, 2019

• 1,200 Words • 40 Comments • Reply

“Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards,” and “ha, ha, I hit them” say the pilots of a US Apache helicopter in jubilant conversation as they machine-gun Iraqi civilians on the ground in Baghdad on 12 July 2007. A wounded man, believed to be the Reuters photographer, 22-year-old Namir Noor-Eldeen, crawls towards a van. “Come... Read More

The Assange Arrest: You Have the Right to Remain Silent

The arrest of Julian Assange was an act of revenge by the US government that strikes at the heart of journalism

Pepe Escobar • April 13, 2019

• 1,200 Words • Leave a Comment

The date – April 11, 2019 – will live in infamy in the annals of Western “values” and “freedom of expression.” The image is stark. A handcuffed journalist and publisher dragged out by force from the inside of an embassy, clutching a Gore Vidal book on the History of the U.S. National Security State. The... Read More

Assange Bound

Israel Shamir • April 13, 2019

• 1,100 Words • 20 Comments • Reply

Like Prometheus to whom he was compared, Julian Assange did not escape the wrath of the self-proclaimed gods of Deep State. After seven years of captivity in the walls of Ecuadorean Embassy, the man who gave us an understanding of international politics was shifted to a new and worse jail, the “British Gitmo”, Belmarsh, waiting... Read More

After 7 Years of Deceptions About Assange, the US Readies for Its First Media Rendition

Jonathan Cook • April 12, 2019

• 1,400 Words • 110 Comments • Reply

For seven years, from the moment Julian Assange first sought refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, they have been telling us we were wrong, that we were paranoid conspiracy theorists. We were told there was no real threat of Assange’s extradition to the United States, that it was all in our fevered imaginations. For... Read More

The Age of Injustice

Paul Craig Roberts • April 11, 2019

• 900 Words

April 11, 2019, brought us a new word for Judas: Moreno—the puppet president of Ecuador who sold Julian Assange to Washington for his 30 pieces of silver. This morning’s arrest of Assange inside the Ecuadoran embassy in London is the first stage in Washington’s attempt to criminalize the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Washington’s... Read More

The Persecution of Julian Assange Is the Persecution of Truth

The Moral Bankruptcy of the Western World

Paul Craig Roberts • March 6, 2019

• 1,800 Words

“The persecution of Julian Assange is the conquest of us all: of our independence, our self respect, our intellect, our compassion, our politics, our culture.” — John Pilger The next time an American, Britisher, or Australian goes on about the freedom, democracy, and humanitarianism of his country, show them this: The Australian government refuses to... Read More

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"Julian Assange" Items Across Entire Archive

Category Classics

American Pravda: Our Coronavirus Catastrophe as Biowarfare Blowback?

Ron Unz

• 1,638 Comments • Reply

9/11 Was an Israeli Job

How America was neoconned into World War IV

Laurent Guyénot

• 444 Comments • Reply

John McCain and the POW Cover-Up

The “war hero” candidate buried information about POWs left behind in Vietnam.