A genuine indication of sense from US president – or more mind games?
US president Joe Biden has said that the US is ‘considering’ abandoning the country’s attempt to extradite persecuted Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, in response to a request from the Australian government. Assange has been held in Belmarsh prison for years while his legal team attempts to fight a case that should have been thrown out when the main US witness admitted he had been lying when he said that Assange arranged the hacking of US systems.
Last month, the High Court kept Assange in prison when it ruled that the US could have more time to provide assurances that it would not impose a death penalty on the Australian journalist, even though it admitted that the US was attacking his right to free speech in a way it would not do to one of its own citizens.
Before his imprisonment, Assange was effectively kept captive for years in the Ecuadorian embassy when the UK refused to stop trying to extradite him to Sweden, which Assange’s supporters feared was an indirect route to handing him to the US, despite Sweden dropping discredited rape allegations. The US has pursued Assange in vengeance for Wikileaks exposing war crimes by US military.
Last month, the US leaked hints that it might accept a ‘plea deal’ and drop the extradition in return for Assange accepting a lesser conviction – still an outright attack on journalistic freedom and the public’s right to know what their governments are doing. Biden’s latest comment may be more mind games and those who support Assange and the importance of press freedom to a functioning democracy should not let up on their pressure until the case is formally dropped and Assange is free, as he should have been all along.
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Maybe the US government have finally realised that all the details of the crimes that they committed being exposed in open court and reported worldwide won’t be in their best interests
Fingers crossed
Been on to keef’s office for comment, skwawky?
JA should be free but as I’ve always said the partner of a US diplomat re a young UK biker’s death was interviewed by a UK magistrate last year by video link from the US. If worse comes to the worse we should demand parity for JA.
Reading this…..
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/04/11/deep-state-versus-julian-assange/
…..the thought occurs that the US may have decided to cut to the chase and rather than spend more money it does not have on an expensive court process just let that slide and at some point take the Mike Pompeo option mentioned in the above article.
Where/when did he say this? A link would’ve been handy, Mr Skwawk.
Biden says he is ‘considering’ Australian call to drop Julian Assange charges
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/apr/10/biden-assange-espionage-charges
https://skwawkbox.org/2024/04/10/video-friend-of-israel-hodge-says-very-few-dare-in-labour-to-support-palestine/
Oh! The Greek tragedy of permanently having your bags packed, eh, madge?
margaret hodge, paedophile enabler. Never forget, never forgive.
Trouble is, Biden’s probably, forgotten he said anything of the sort, by now.
My thoughts exactly. If it is mind games, they aren’t biden’s, whose thoughts are invariably about having a nap.
The question arises as to why this so called initiative on the part of the Australian Government has been made now?
Canberra – currently run by a so called ‘Labour’ administration – which like its UK counterpart bends over backwards for the fascism that is Zionism and never misses an opportunity to attack and persecute anyone showing support for the Palestinians who have been murdered daily for decades – could have made this so called request at any time during this persecution by the USA and its useless idiot the UK (in the form of its political and media classes).
The notion that a so called “State” which jumps to attention at every command of its colonial master, the UK, every time it gets an order from its own colonial master, the USA*, has suddenly grown a pair of balls and has finally taken the initiative here is not just suspicious, it is risible.
It seems more than reasonable, given the overall wider context, to consider the possibility that the Australian comprador elite have been instructed/requested by either Washington, London or both to act on the matter.
Possible reasons may be to get rid of a problem so the numpties in charge of the Collective West’s attack dogs can focus on bigger problems – like the fact that their so called “free market” capitalist system cannot compete with the alternatives on offer** or as just another cynical public relations exercise – ie propaganda/psyop as per Berney’s tried and tested model.
*see below
** See here: https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/yellen-dispatched-to-beg-china-for
The extent to which the UK is owned lock stock and barrel and, despite the bullshit rhetoric of the Brexit “taking back control”, has little, if any, realistic national sovereignty is highlighted in this current piece published in the Big Issue:
https://https://www.bigissue.com/opinion/britain-economy-america-business-vassal-state/?
“Within the last month in Britain, there have been several high-profile company takeovers by US businesses. Perhaps the most striking was the purchase of the iconic BT Tower in London by a US hotel chain which will convert the building into a luxury hotel. Nine days later it was announced that GXO of Connecticut will buy Wincanton, the haulier established in 1925 and employing 20,000 staff.
Four days later Spirent, the large UK telecoms company, was swallowed up by its Arizona-based competitor Viavi. The very next day, 6 March, Carlyle Group from Washington DC announced it was taking majority ownership of Southend Airport. Other US buyers are circling…..
….These takeovers may sound exceptional, but they actually fit neatly into the pattern of the last decade during which great chunks of the British economy have been transferred to new American owners. Just a few of the more notable recent US purchases were G4S, Sky, Meggitt, Ultra and Hotel Chocolat. This wave of takeovers has also led to the rapid decline of the UK’s London Stock Exchange, whose biggest 350 companies are now, in total, worth less than Microsoft.
Steadily the US has taken ownership of thousands of businesses and brands in Britain, including high street shops and manufacturers.
In our daily lives we Brits have become abjectly dependent on US suppliers – our supermarket shelves are dominated by Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola and Kellogg’s. Beyond supplying the majority of branded goods in supermarkets, US firms are taking over the high street itself – US private equity now owns Morrisons with its 110,000 staff, and one of the fastest growing retail chains is Costco from Washington State. Costco’s logo, like so many US brands, including Colgate and Pepsico, is in the same colours as the stars and stripes. The US invaders are hiding in plain sight.
The most emphatic sign of the loss of control is that the bridges which we have to cross to do business within Britain belong to American companies…
…And it’s not just business. The politics of the last few months feels similarly overshadowed by the US. British media is dominated by the Punch & Judy show of Trump vs Biden, and in foreign policy Westminster is synchronised with the US.
So what has become of the UK’s independence? Didn’t we have a referendum in 2016 to take back control? It turns out that the UK exited Europe only to hand over control to the US along with ownership of large swathes of the UK. In Britain US ownership now means profits are sucked out of the country, with only very low taxes paid along the way, and control is exercised thousands of miles away.
It gets worse though: US economic dominance has meant that many of the best people in technology and science emigrate to the US and every year several billion pounds worth of art treasure is hauled across the Atlantic by wealthy buyers. US control has also led to a reshaping of Britain’s economy, and the adoption of regulations which conform to the wishes of our new American masters.”
———————————————————–
The UK, like much of the Collective West is merely a vassal state of the rapidly collapsing hegemon.
The Nixon administration had a very difficult relationship with the Joint Chiefs of Staff that headed the US military. At one point, it was discovered that the military was spying on his administration.
Nixon wanted to prosecute Admiral Moorer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, under the Espionage Act. However, he was persuaded that this would not be a good idea.
Whether the JCS knew about the CIA plans to assassinate Nixon in early 1972 is not known. However, Nixon was later successfully ousted from power as a result of a CIA-Pentagon coup.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moorer-Radford_Affair
Hmmm .. a few points
A lot of our infrastructure is owned by countries in EU ..
The US does not control everything ..
– in particular the EU ..
Individual countries in the EU oppose what the US is doing –
in respect of arms to Isreal – eg Eire.
Not only that but people in THIS country are horrified by
what is happening in Gaza – and no doubt that is true of
other Europeans.
As for Biden personally – yes his physical disabilities are obvious
(though if he used a stick that would at least be honest).
Speaking as a person older than him –
I dont think his mental facilities are impaired in the real sense –
but his ability to communicate them is so I wish they could find
someone else. In other words they need someone who can think on
their feet.
To get back to Assange – I think that the proposal to drop the charges
is because Biden is beginning to realise it will do them more harm
than good and he has an Election to think of.
PS Anyone know what is happening to “Jewish Voice for Labour”
web site? I fear for them and hope the disruption is temporary ..
Really?
The EU economy and that of individual countries in the EU is in crisis as a result of the EU’s subservience to Washington. It is no accident that the Headquarters of both the EU and NATO are located in the same city – Brussels.
The energy security, and thus the industrial capacity, of individual EU member states has been totally undermined by the EU’s kow-towing to Washington. With the former German power house’s industry virtually shutting down as a result of the German Chancellor’s supine stance which allowed the US deep state to first publicly humiliate Germany when Biden announced that Germany would be withdrawing from the cheap energy guaranteed from Nordstream and subsequently in the very obvious US terrorist destruction of the Nordstram pipelines – an effective act of war against Germany – without a peep from either Germany or the EU.
Indeed, individual elites across the EU and its members states are constantly echoing US policies to the detriment of their individual States and the EU as a whole. From the WEF stooge and self identifying Green ”720 degree’ Baerbock – who is on record as not giving a flying fuck about German voters – to that well known so called Socialist Worker ‘Jungle’ Josep Borrell; from the corrupt and incompetent EU head Ursula von der Crazy to the verbally incontinent and driveling Norwegian head of NATO, Stolenburg.
Apart from Hungary and more recently Eire the rest of the collective EU and EU member states – as well as the UK – are run by a comprador class jumping to attention for US not European interests.
Many of the big industries of chemicals etc have moved from Germany to the USA – and some to China – because it is no longer economical to operate following the loss of guaranteed cheap energy from Eurasia. A loss totally dictated to the EU and UK by Washington. And the effects of this are across all sectors from farming and food production to oil refineries; from transport costs to industrial production.
France is long on record of complaining they are having to buy expensive US LNG fracked gas at three times the price of US consumers. Farmers are up in arms across France, Holland and other EU members states – like Poland – over not just the energy costs imposed on them by an EU jumping to do the bidding of the US but also being forced to accept cheap Ukrainian grain and other agricultural products from Ukraine which are cheaper than EU farmers can produce them at cost.
As noted here at around the 17 minute 45 seconds mark to 20 minutes 15 second mark….
https://www.rokfin.com/stream/47487/EU-in-prewar-with-Russia-w-Alexandre-Guerreiro-Live
….the EU Council of Ambassadors – which ratifies a significant amount of legislation – always has a US representative present at their meetings. Just like the UK house of Commons has a representative overseer, known as ‘The Rememberancer’, from the City of London Corporation close to the Speaker to insure the City Of London Corporation’s interests are not compromised by the democratic requirements of the UK populace.
Certainly, the general populace across Europe and the UK are horrified over Gaza and no doubt other pertinent issues. However, across the continent the political and media classes are quick to ignore, dismiss and vilify anyone who strays from total loyalty to The Official Narrative.
Ask JVL.
Just words.