<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><h1 class="print-title"><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">John Pilger's Investigation Into the War on WikiLeaks and His Interview With Julian Assange</span></font></h1>
<div class="print-submitted">John Pilger | Friday 14 January 2011</div><p><img style="float: left; padding-right: 2em;" src="http://www.truth-out.org/files/images/011411-5.jpg" alt=""><br>
</p><div class="print-content"><p class="rteleft">The attacks on
WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, are a response to an
information revolution that threatens old power orders in politics and
journalism. The incitement to murder trumpeted by public figures in the
United States, together with attempts by the Obama administration to
corrupt the law and send Assange to a hell-hole prison for the rest of
his life, are the reactions of a rapacious system exposed as never
before.</p><p class="rteleft">In recent weeks, the US Justice Department has
established a secret grand jury just across the river from Washington in
the eastern district of the state of Virginia. The object is to indict
Assange under a discredited espionage act used to arrest peace activists
during the First World War, or one of the "war on terror" conspiracy
statutes that have degraded American justice. Judicial experts describe
the jury as a "deliberate set up," pointing out that this corner of
Virginia is home to the employees and families of the Pentagon, CIA,
Department of Homeland Security, and other pillars of American power.</p><p class="rteleft">"This is not good news," Assange told me when we
spoke this past week, his voice dark and concerned. He says he can have
"bad days - but I recover." When we met in London last year, I said,
"You are making some very serious enemies, not least of all the most
powerful government engaged in two wars. How do you deal with that sense
of danger?" His reply was characteristically analytical. "It's not that
fear is absent. But courage is really the intellectual mastery over
fear - by an understanding of what the risks are and how to navigate a
path through them."</p><p class="rteleft">Regardless of the threats to his freedom and safety,
he says the US is not WikiLeaks' main "technological enemy." "China is
the worst offender. China has aggressive, sophisticated interception
technology that places itself between every reader inside China and
every information source outside China. We've been fighting a running
battle to make sure we can get information through, and there are now
all sorts of ways Chinese readers can get on to our site."</p><p class="rteleft">It was in this spirit of "getting information
through" that WikiLeaks was founded in 2006, but with a moral dimension.
"The goal is justice," wrote Assange on the homepage, "the method is
transparency." Contrary to a current media mantra, WikiLeaks material is
not "dumped." Less than one percent of the 251,000 US embassy cables
have been released. As Assange points out, the task of interpreting
material and editing that which might harm innocent individuals demands
"standards [befitting] higher levels of information and primary
sources." To secretive power, this is journalism at its most dangerous.</p><p class="rteleft">On 18 March 2008, a war on WikiLeaks was foretold in a
secret Pentagon document prepared by the "Cyber Counterintelligence
Assessments Branch." US intelligence, it said, intended to destroy the
feeling of "trust," which is WikiLeaks' "center of gravity." It planned
to do this with threats to "exposure [and] criminal prosecution."
Silencing and criminalizing this rare source of independent journalism
was the aim: smear the method. Hell hath no fury like imperial Mafiosi
scorned.</p><p class="rteleft">Others, also scorned, have lately played a supporting
part, intentionally or not, in the hounding of Assange, some for
reasons of petty jealousy. Sordid and shabby describe their behavior,
which serves only to highlight the injustice against a man who has
courageously revealed what we have a right to know.</p><p class="rteleft">As the US Justice Department, in its hunt for
Assange, subpoenas the Twitter and email accounts, banking and credit
card records of people around the world - as if we are all subjects of
the United States - much of the "free" media on both sides of the
Atlantic direct their indignation at the hunted.</p><p class="rteleft">"So, Julian, why won't you go back to Sweden now?"
demanded the headline over Catherine Bennett's Observer column on 19
December, which questioned Assange's response to allegations of sexual
misconduct with two women in Stockholm last August. "To keep delaying
the moment of truth, for this champion of fearless disclosure and total
openness," wrote Bennett, "could soon begin to look pretty dishonest, as
well as inconsistent." Not a word in Bennett's vitriol considered the
looming threats to Assange's basic human rights and his physical safety,
as described by Geoffrey Robertson QC, in the extradition hearing in
London on 11 January.</p><p class="rteleft">In response to Bennett, the editor of the online
Nordic News Network in Sweden, Al Burke, wrote to the Observer
explaining, "plausible answers to Catherine Bennett's tendentious
question" were both critically important and freely available. Assange
had remained in Sweden for more than five weeks after the rape
allegation was made - and subsequently dismissed by the chief prosecutor
in Stockholm - and that repeated attempts by him and his Swedish lawyer
to meet a second prosecutor, who reopened the case following the
intervention of a government politician, had failed. And yet, as Burke
pointed out, this prosecutor had granted him permission to fly to London
where "he also offered to be interviewed - a normal practice in such
cases." So, it seems odd, at the very least, that the prosecutor then
issued a European arrest warrant. The Observer did not publish Burke's
letter.</p><p class="rteleft">This record straightening is crucial because it
describes the perfidious behavior of the Swedish authorities - a bizarre
sequence confirmed to me by other journalists in Stockholm and by
Assange's Swedish lawyer Bjorn Hurtig. Not only that, Burke cataloged
the unforeseen danger Assange faces should he be extradited to Sweden.
"Documents released by WikiLeaks since Assange moved to England," he
wrote, "clearly indicate that Sweden has consistently submitted to
pressure from the United States in matters relating to civil rights.
There is ample reason for concern that if Assange were to be taken into
custody by Swedish authorities, he could be turned over to the United
States without due consideration of his legal rights."</p><p class="rteleft">These documents have been virtually ignored in
Britain. They show that the Swedish political class has moved far from
the perceived neutrality of a generation ago and that the country's
military and intelligence apparatus is all but absorbed into
Washington's matrix around NATO. In a 2007 cable, the US Embassy in
Stockholm lauds the Swedish government dominated by the conservative
Moderate Party of Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt as coming "from a new
political generation and not bound by [anti-US] traditions [and] in
practice a pragmatic and strong partner with NATO, having troops under
NATO command in Kosovo and Afghanistan."</p><p class="rteleft">The cable reveals how foreign policy is largely
controlled by Carl Bildt, the current foreign minister, whose career has
been based on a loyalty to the United States that goes back to the
Vietnam War when he attacked Swedish public television for broadcasting
evidence that the US was bombing civilian targets. Bildt played a
leading role in the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a lobby group
with close ties to the White House of George W. Bush, the CIA and the
far right of the Republican Party.</p><p class="rteleft">"The significance of all this for the Assange case,"
notes Burke in a recent study, "is that it will be Carl Bildt and
perhaps other members of the Reinfeldt government who will decide -
openly or, more likely, furtively behind a façade of legal formality -
on whether or not to approve the anticipated US request for extradition.
Everything in their past clearly indicates that such a request will be
granted."</p><p class="rteleft">For example, in December 2001, with the "war on
terror" under way, the Swedish government abruptly revoked the political
refugee status of two Egyptians, Ahmed Agiza and Mohammed al-Zari. They
were handed to a CIA kidnap squad at Stockholm airport and "rendered"
to Egypt, where they were tortured. When the Swedish ombudsman for
justice investigated and found that their human rights had been
"seriously violated," it was too late.</p><p class="rteleft"><em><a target="_blank" href="http://www.truth-out.org/newsletter">Independent journalism is important. Click here to get Truthout stories sent to your email.</a></em></p><p class="rteleft">The implications for the Assange case are clear. Both
men were removed without due process of law and before their lawyers
could file appeals to the European Human Rights Court and in response to
a US threat to impose a trade embargo on Sweden. Last year, Assange
applied for residency in Sweden, hoping to base WikiLeaks there. It is
widely believed that Washington warned Sweden through mutual
intelligence contacts of the potential consequences. In December,
prosecutor Marianne Ny, who reactivated the Assange case, discussed the
possibility of Assange's extradition to the US on her web site.</p><p class="rteleft">Almost six months after the sex allegations were
first made public, Assange has been charged with no crime, but his right
to a presumption of innocence has been willfully denied. The unfolding
events in Sweden have been farcical, at best. The Australian barrister
James Catlin, who acted for Assange in October, describes the Swedish
justice system as "a laughing stock ... There is no precedent for it.
The Swedes are making it up as they go along." He says that Assange,
apart from noting contradictions in the case, has not publicly
criticized the women who made the allegations against him. It was the
police who tipped off the Swedish equivalent of the Sun, Expressen, with
defamatory material about them, initiating a trial by media across the
world.</p><p class="rteleft">In Britain, this trial has welcomed yet more eager
prosecutors, with the BBC to the fore. There was no presumption of
innocence in Kirsty Wark's "Newsnight" court in December. "Why don't you
just apologise to the women?" she demanded of Assange, followed by: "Do
we have your word of honour that you won't abscond?" On Radio 4's
"Today" program, John Humphrys, the partner of Bennett, told Assange
that he was obliged to go back to Sweden "because the law says you
must." The hectoring Humphrys, however, had more pressing interests.
"Are you a sexual predator?" he asked. Assange replied that the
suggestion was ridiculous, to which Humphrys demanded to know how many
women he had slept with.</p><p class="rteleft">"Would even Fox News have descended to that level?"
wondered the American historian William Blum. "I wish Assange had been
raised in the streets of Brooklyn, as I was. He then would have known
precisely how to reply to such a question: 'You mean including your
mother?'"</p><p class="rteleft">What is most striking about these "interviews" is not
so much their arrogance and lack of intellectual and moral humility; it
is their indifference to fundamental issues of justice and freedom and
their imposition of narrow, prurient terms of reference. Fixing these
boundaries allows the interviewer to diminish the journalistic
credibility of Assange and WikiLeaks, whose remarkable achievements
stand in vivid contrast to their own. It is like watching the old and
stale, guardians of the status quo, struggling to prevent the emergence
of the new.</p><p class="rteleft">In this media trial, there is a tragic dimension,
obviously for Assange, but also for the best of mainstream journalism.
Having published a slew of professionally brilliant editions with the
WikiLeaks disclosures, feted all over the world, The Guardian recovered
its establishment propriety on 17 December by turning on its besieged
source. A major article by the paper's senior correspondent Nick Davies
claimed that he had been given the "complete" Swedish police file with
its "new" and "revealing" salacious morsels.</p><p class="rteleft">Assange's Swedish lawyer Hurtig says that crucial
evidence is missing from the file given to Davies, including "the fact
that the women were re-interviewed and given an opportunity to change
their stories" and the tweets and SMS messages between them, which are
"critical to bringing justice in this case." Vital exculpatory evidence
is also omitted, such as the statement by the original prosecutor, Eva
Finne, that "Julian Assange is not suspected of rape."</p><p class="rteleft">Having reviewed the Davies article, Assange's former
barrister James Catlin wrote to me: "The complete absence of due process
is the story and Davies ignores it. Why does due process matter?
Because the massive powers of two arms of government are being brought
to bear against the individual whose liberty and reputation are at
stake." I would add: so is his life.<br>
<br>
The Guardian has profited hugely from the WikiLeaks disclosures, in many
ways. On the other hand, WikiLeaks, which survives on mostly small
donations and can no longer receive funds through many banks and credit
companies thanks to the bullying of Washington, has received nothing
from the paper. In February, Random House will publish a Guardian book
that is sure to be a lucrative best seller, which Amazon is advertising
as "The End of Secrecy: the Rise and Fall of WikiLeaks." When I asked
David Leigh, the Guardian executive in charge of the book, what was
meant by "fall," he replied that Amazon was wrong and that the working
title had been "The Rise (and Fall?) of WikiLeaks." "Note parenthesis
and query," he wrote, "Not meant for publication anyway." (The book is
now described on the Guardian web site as "WikiLeaks: Inside Julian
Assange's War on Secrecy.") Still, with all that duly noted, the sense
is that "real" journalists are back in the saddle. Too bad about the new
boy, who never really belonged.</p><p class="rteleft">On 11 January, Assange's first extradition hearing
was held at Belmarsh Magistrates Court, an infamous address because it
is here that people were, before the advent of control orders, consigned
to Britain's own Guantanamo, Belmarsh prison. The change from ordinary
Westminster magistrates' court was due to a lack of press facilities,
according to the authorities. That they announced this on the day Vice
President Joe Biden declared Assange a "high tech terrorist" was no
doubt coincidental, though the message was not.</p><p class="rteleft">For his part, Assange is just as worried about what
will happen to Bradley Manning, the alleged whistleblower, being held in
horrific conditions which the US National Commission on Prisons calls
"tortuous." At 23, Private Manning is the world's pre-eminent prisoner
of conscience, having remained true to the Nuremberg principle that
every soldier has the right to "a moral choice." His suffering mocks the
notion of the land of the free.</p><p class="rteleft">"Government whistleblowers," said Barack Obama,
running for president in 2008, "are part of a healthy democracy and must
be protected from reprisal." Obama has since pursued and prosecuted
more whistleblowers than any other president in American history.</p><p class="rteleft">"Cracking Bradley Manning is the first step," Assange
told me. "The aim clearly is to break him and force a confession that
he somehow conspired with me to harm the national security of the United
States. In fact, I'd never heard his name before it was published in
the press. WikiLeaks technology was designed from the very beginning to
make sure that we never knew the identities or names of people
submitting material. We are as untraceable as we are uncensorable.
That's the only way to assure sources they are protected."</p><p class="rteleft">He adds: "I think what's emerging in the mainstream
media is the awareness that if I can be indicted, other journalists can,
too. Even the New York Times is worried. This used not to be the case.
If a whistleblower was prosecuted, publishers and reporters were
protected by the First Amendment that journalists took for granted.
That's being lost. The release of the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs,
with their evidence of the killing of civilians, hasn't caused this -
it's the exposure and embarrassment of the political class: the truth of
what governments say in secret, how they lie in public; how wars are
started. They don't want the public to know these things and scapegoats
must be found."</p><p class="rteleft">What about the allusions to the "fall" of WikiLeaks?
"There is no fall," he said. "We have never published as much as we are
now. WikiLeaks is now mirrored on more than 2,000 websites. I can't keep
track of the of the spin-off sites: those who are doing their own
WikiLeaks ... If something happens to me or to WikiLeaks, 'insurance'
files will be released. They speak more of the same truth to power,
including the media. There are 504 US embassy cables on one broadcasting
organisation and there are cables on Murdoch and Newscorp."</p><p class="rteleft">The latest propaganda about the "damage" caused by
WikiLeaks is a warning by the US State Department to "hundreds of human
rights activists, foreign government officials and business people
identified in leaked diplomatic cables of possible threats to their
safety." This was how The New York Times dutifully relayed it on 8
January, and it is bogus. In a letter to Congress, Secretary of Defense
Robert Gates has admitted that no sensitive intelligence sources have
been compromised. On 28 November, McClatchy Newspapers reported, "US
officials conceded they have no evidence to date that the [prior]
release of documents led to anyone's death." NATO in Kabul told CNN it
could not find a single person who needed protecting.</p><p class="rteleft">The great American playwright Arthur Miller wrote:
"The thought that the state ... is punishing so many innocent people is
intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied." What
WikiLeaks has given us is truth, including rare and precious insight
into how and why so many innocent people have suffered in reigns of
terror disguised as wars and executed in our name; and how the United
States has secretly and wantonly intervened in democratic governments
from Latin America to its most loyal ally in Britain.</p><p class="rteleft">Javier Moreno, the editor of El Pais, which published
the WikiLeaks logs in Spain, wrote, "I believe that the global interest
sparked by the WikiLeaks papers is mainly due to the simple fact that
they conclusively reveal the extent to which politicians in the West
have been lying to their citizens."</p><p class="rteleft">Crushing individuals like Assange and Manning is not
difficult for a great power, however craven. The point is, we should not
allow it to happen, which means those of us meant to keep the record
straight should not collaborate in any way. Transparency and
information, to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, are the "currency" of
democratic freedom. "Every news organisation," a leading American
constitutional lawyer told me, "should recognize that Julian Assange is
one of them and that his prosecution will have a huge and chilling
effect on journalism."</p><p class="rteleft">My favorite secret document - leaked by WikiLeaks, of
course - is from the Ministry of Defense in London. It describes
journalists who serve the public without fear or favor as "subversive"
and "threats." Such a badge of honor.<br>
</p></div>
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