Foreign Policy Category Archive

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Julian in the Dock

Israel Shamir • March 12, 2020

• 1,900 Words • 80 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 • 255 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

Manufacturing Truth

C.J. Hopkins • December 3, 2018

• 1,700 Words • 158 Comments • Reply

If you’re one of the millions of human beings who, despite a preponderance of evidence to the contrary, still believe there is such a thing as “the truth,” you might not want to read this essay. Seriously, it can be extremely upsetting when you discover that there is no “truth” … or rather, that what... Read More

Guardian Escalates Its Vilification of Julian Assange

Jonathan Cook • November 29, 2018

• 2,300 Words • 21 Comments • Reply

It is welcome that finally there has been a little pushback, including from leading journalists, to the Guardian’s long-running vilification of Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks. Reporter Luke Harding’s latest article, claiming that Donald Trump’s disgraced former campaign manager Paul Manafort secretly visited Assange in Ecuador’s embassy in London on three occasions, is so... Read More

There Is No Case Against Julian Assange So Lies Take the Place of Evidence

Paul Craig Roberts • November 28, 2018

• 1,100 Words

Julian Assange is not guilty of any crime. But Washington is going to convict him anyway. Documents are being fabricated to show that Assange met inside the Ecuadoran Embassy in London with Paul Manafort and some Russians. The logs of all visits to the Embassy have been released and show no such meetings. This latest... Read More

Assange Never Met Manafort

Luke Harding and the Guardian Publish Still More Blatant MI6 Lies

Craig Murray • November 27, 2018

• 800 Words • 126 Comments • Reply

The right wing Ecuadorean government of President Moreno continues to churn out its production line of fake documents regarding Julian Assange, and channel them straight to MI6 mouthpiece Luke Harding of the Guardian. Amazingly, more Ecuadorean Government documents have just been discovered for the Guardian, this time spy agency reports detailing visits of Paul Manafort... Read More

Revenge Is Mine Saith Washington

Paul Craig Roberts • November 20, 2018

• 1,900 Words

Justice has disappeared in the West. In Justice’s place stands Revenge. This fact is conclusively illustrated by Julian Assange’s ongoing eight year ordeal. For eight years Julian Assange’s life has been lived in a Kafka Police State. He has been incarcerated first under British house arrest and then in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London, despite... Read More

VIPS Plead for Humanitarian Asylum for Julian Assange

William Binney • August 6, 2018

• 2,200 Words • 71 Comments • Reply

Memorandum for: The US Embassies of Ecuador and the United Kingdom, and the U.S. State Department From: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity Subject: Humanitarian Asylum for Julian Assange For six years, WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange has been effectively imprisoned without charges at Ecuador’s London embassy. In that time, two international courts and dozens of respected... Read More

Washington Moves Against Rafael Correa

Paul Craig Roberts • July 4, 2018

• 300 Words

As President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa was a Godsend for the Ecuadorian people, for Latin American independence and for WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange. By serving justice and truth instead of Washington, Correa earned Washington’s hatred and determination to destroy him. Correa was succeeded as president by Lenin Moreno, who Correa mistakenly believed to be an ally,... Read More

The Persecution of Julian Assange Proves That Western Values No Longer Exist

Paul Craig Roberts • June 23, 2018

• 500 Words

The Western world never ceases to speak of its “democratic values.” In Western political theory, the way democracy works is by free speech and a free press. By speaking out, citizens and media keep the government accountable. This liberal tradition means that there are no words or terms that cannot be used because some designated... Read More

The Long Captivity of Julian Assange

Israel Shamir • June 21, 2018

• 2,300 Words • 129 Comments • Reply

These long summer days are good for forest walks or swimming; in the evenings, I read classics with my 10 year old son who otherwise spends too much time at video games. This time, it happens to be the Odyssey, the poem I translated some 25 years ago, and yesterday I came to read Book... Read More

In the Western World Truth Is An Endangered Species

Come To Its Support

Paul Craig Roberts • June 10, 2018

• 1,000 Words

Nowhere in the Western world is truth respected. Even universities are imposing censorship and speech control. Governments are shutting down, and will eventually criminalize, all explanations that differ from official ones. The Western world no longer has a print and TV media. In its place there is a propaganda ministry for the ruling elite. Whistleblowers... Read More

Assange’s Internet Blackout & Skripal Case Part of Propaganda War That Risks Real One

John Pilger • March 30, 2018

• 600 Words • 6 Comments • Reply

The Skripal saga and Ecuador’s move to cut Julian Assange’s internet is part of a wider crackdown on freedom of speech and states like Russia which have stood up to the West. It risks evolving into a real war, John Pilger told RT. “This is about a war on freedom of speech; this man is... Read More

The Persecution of Julian Assange

Paul Craig Roberts • January 12, 2018

• 1,200 Words

The persecution of Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, is now seven years old. Ecuador has protected Assange for the past half decade from being turned over to Washington by the corrupt Swedish and British for torture and prosecution as a spy by giving Assange political asylum inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Ecuador has... Read More

Candidate Trump: ‘I Love Wikileaks.’ President Trump: ‘Arrest Assange!’

Ron Paul • April 24, 2017

• 500 Words • 15 Comments • Reply

“I love Wikileaks,” candidate Donald Trump said on October 10th on the campaign trail. He praised the organization for reporting on the darker side of the Hillary Clinton campaign. It was information likely leaked by a whistleblower from within the Clinton campaign to Wikileaks. Back then he praised Wikileaks for promoting transparency, but candidate Trump... Read More

UN Rules Julian Assange Is “Arbitrarily Detained”

Paul Craig Roberts • February 5, 2016

• 200 Words • 3 Comments

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has ruled that Wikileaks’ Julian Assange has been arbitrarily detained by the “democratic” governments of Sweden and the UK and is entitled to his freedom and compensation for detention by the two “democratic” governments. At the beginning of Assange’s arbitary detention, I said that the detention was... Read More

It's Ecuador or Guantanamo

Pepe Escobar • June 21, 2012

• 1,100 Words • Leave a Comment

In a cliffhanger move John Le Carre would be proud of, WikiLeaks superstar Julian Assange stepped into the Ecuadorian embassy in Knightsbridge, central London, on Tuesday, requested political asylum invoking the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and unleashed yet another international storm. Ecuador's Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino confirmed that the Rafael Correa government in Quito... Read More

Pentagon Papers, Bradley Manning, and What Is to be Done

Peter Lee • June 13, 2011

• 2,500 Words • Leave a Comment

Today, June 13, 2011, is the fortieth anniversary of Daniel Ellsberg’s leak of the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times. The National Archives is commemorating the occasion by putting the Papers (supplemented by a large amount of content that Ellberg didn’t leak) on-line. I’m going to mark the event with some recycling of my... Read More

Masters of Hate Locked and Loaded

Pepe Escobar • January 13, 2011

• 800 Words • Leave a Comment

NEW YORK - There is an eerie, direct connection between hate rhetoric reaching a fever pitch in the United States, the shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, calls to take out WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and the ninth anniversary of the infamous US detention facility at Guantanamo in Cuba. This disturbing connection should send shivers... Read More

Emperor Waits in Wings with Waterboard

Pepe Escobar • December 18, 2010

• 1,200 Words • Leave a Comment

Oh! spies are of no use nowadays. Their profession is over. The newspapers do their work instead. - Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband, Act III "He will not be going back to that cell once occupied by Oscar Wilde." Eventually he didn't. But little did Mark Stephens, one of Julian Assange's lawyers, know that it... Read More

Hell Hath No Fury Like an Empire Mocked

Pepe Escobar • December 16, 2010

• 1,600 Words • Leave a Comment

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised. The revolution will be no rerun brothers; The revolution will be live. - Gill Scott-Heron, 1970 Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned. - William Congreve, The Mourning Bride, 1697 No episode of Law and... Read More

Julian Assange: Wanted by the Empire, Dead or Alive

CounterPunch Diary

Alexander Cockburn • December 3, 2010

• 2,200 Words • Leave a Comment

The American airwaves quiver with the screams of parlor assassins howling for Julian Assange's head. Jonah Goldberg, contributor to the National Review, asks in his syndicated column, "Why wasn't Assange garroted in his hotel room years ago?" Sarah Palin wants him hunted down and brought to justice, saying: "He is an anti-American operative with blood... Read More

"Julian Assange" Items Across Entire Archive

Category Classics

9/11 Was an Israeli Job

How America was neoconned into World War IV

Laurent Guyénot

• 388 Comments • Reply

John McCain and the POW Cover-Up

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

Sydney Schanberg

• 150 Comments • Reply

America's Jews Are Driving America's Wars

Shouldn't they recuse themselves when dealing with the Middle East?