Support Julian Assange

The New Statesman editor reflects on the other-worldly WikiLeaks frontman and Jemima Khan’s extraordinary guest edit. Also, how technology is changing the way I think.

To Kensington Town Hall in west London on Saturday 9 April for the New Statesman/ Frontline Club debate. The motion was: “This house believes that whistleblowers make the world a safer place.” Proposing were Clayton Swisher, head of al-Jazeera’s transparency unit and the man who brought us the Palestine Papers in January; Julian Assange, editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks; and our own Mehdi Hasan. Opposing were David Richmond, a former director of defence and intelligence at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office; Bob Ayers, who worked for the US government and who, from 1990-92, “was responsible for the security of more than 40,000 classified intelligence-processing systems at 55 locations across the world” (is he sure it was only 55, not 56?); and the superbly articulate Douglas Murray, who until recently was director of the Centre for Social (In)Cohesion. I was the chair.

Tickets for the event sold out within a matter of hours of its being announced on our website. It was apparent from the beginning – long queues had delayed the start, tension inside the hall was considerable – that most of those present had come to see the notorious WikiLeaks frontman; that it would be, if not exactly a Rally for Assange, then a setting in which he would feel comfortable, even adored. It didn’t help that the debate felt rigged against the opposition: two invited whistleblowers intervened midway through to offer their sad stories of persecution and struggle from the floor.

Space oddity
I encountered Assange for the first time in the basement lavatories of the building. He was looking for somewhere to apply styling wax to his flaxen locks – his hair has grown longer since Christmas. Then, pale, thin and spectral, he was photographed as he ghosted around the snow-silent grounds of Vaughan Smith’s mansion in Norfolk, where he has been living as he waits to discover if he will be extradited to Sweden over allegations of rape.

In person, Assange is reserved, watchful and unhurried. With his white-blond hair and fine features, he resembles both a younger Christopher Walken and David Bowie as he appeared, blanched and other-worldly, in Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth. As with many computer hackers and web geeks, there is something distinctly alien about Assange, manifested in his impatience with conventional structures and contempt for the morality of the masses.

As a platform speaker, he is measured without being forceful or inspiring. He laid out his case knowing that he was unlikely to be challenged from the audience. When a challenge did come, from Murray, it was bold and ad hominem. Knowing that he was operating in a hostile environment, with most of those present indicating in a vote before the debate began that they were in support of the motion, Murray chose to play the man rather than the ball. Who funds WikiLeaks? he asked. What is the relationship between Assange and the Holocaust denier Israel Shamir? Who ensures that WikiLeaks operates transparently? Who, in other words, guards the guardians? Do take a look at the recording of the event on our website (tinyurl.com/WikiLeaksDebate).

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This is a very interesting and informative rundown on Manning’s possible conditions, from warisacrime.org – it has most of what we know from the various sources which have any useful information….

By David Swanson

There are conflicting accounts of exactly how Bradley Manning, the alleged whistleblower on countless U.S. government crimes, has been illegally punished for 8 months so far, pre-trial. There’s no denying that this young man who allegedly sought to make his government’s actions known for the public good and did not seek to profit thereby has been denied a speedy trial. The question is to what extent he has already been punished, and even cruelly and unusually punished, without having been convicted of any crime. But the accounts differ less than it at first appears. And there is one sure way to find out the facts.

Let’s look first at what Glenn Greenwald reported on December 15th. Greenwald wrote that he had interviewed “several people directly familiar with the conditions of Manning’s detention, ultimately including a Quantico brig official (Lt. Brian Villiard) who confirmed much of what they conveyed.” In Greenwald’s account, Manning had been a model detainee and had never been on suicide watch, but had been declared from the start a “Maximum Custody Detainee,” and had been held from the start in “intensive solitary confinement . . . for 23 out of 24 hours every day . . . he sits completely alone in his cell.” Read the rest of this entry »

The best of USA objective reporting: The worse thing about this list is………….it exists in a country that like to preach freedom of speech and democracy

RUSH LIMBAUGH – (Right-wing radio talk show host)

“Back in the old days when men were men and countries were countries, this guy would die of lead poisoning from a bullet in the brain.”

http://www.theodoresworld.net/archives/2010/11/rush_limbaugh_on_wikileaks_fou.html

“This guy Assange could have been stopped, come on, folks. People have been shot for far less than this.”

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_112910/content/01125112.guest.html

“(laughing) Ah, folks, even Greg Palkot of Fox News interviewed Assange, which means that Roger Ailes knows where he is. Ailes knows where Assange is. Give Ailes the order and there is no Assange, I’ll guarantee you, and there will be no fingerprints on it.”

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_112910/content/01125112.guest.html

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WILLIAM KRISTOL – (Editor of the Weekly Standard)

“Why can’t we act forcefully against WikiLeaks? Why can’t we use our various assets to harass, snatch or neutralize Julian Assange and his collaborators, wherever they are?”

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/whack-wikileaks_520462.html

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“This fellow Anwar al-Awlaki – a joint U.S. citizen hiding out in Yemen – is on a ‘kill list’ [for inciting terrorism against the U.S.]. Mr. Assange should be put on the same list.”

************ Read the rest of this entry »

Ever wonder what  people type into a seach engines to find information ? Here is a detailed list of search term statistics taken from our server..We use these statistics to see how people are reaching our site.

Some of them are quite amazing

—–>> Download the  Julian Assange Search Engine Ststistics here. <<——-