Why Julian Assange Was Set Free
The Main Stream Media announced the news that Assange was free a day after Social Media columnist Richard Medhurst broke the story.
The reporting styles and explanations were diametrically opposed. Medhurst was overjoyed with the news, as well he should be since he attended nearly all of the legal proceedings endured by Assange. The defendant’s suffering became his own. Medhurst was ecstatic that justice finally come to the center figure in the battle for the rights of journalists in the 21st Century.
The official charge against Assange was “conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information.” For this charge, the U.S. waged a relentless and vindictive campaign against this journalist. In all, it cost Assange 14 years of his life, including years in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London where police constantly waited outside to arrest him. Then he endured five years in the British Maximum Security Prison, Belmarsh.
Over at NBC, CBS, CNN, and the rest of the corporate media, the atmosphere was more gloomy. Assange, they said, was released for time served after confessing to a charge of espionage at a court hearing, or a facsimile thereof, in, of all places the city of Saipan, which is part of the American colony of the Northern Marianas. To clarify to most Americans why Assange was going to court in the South Pacific, the judge of the little colony, Chief Judge Ramona V Manglona explained, “Not many people recognize we are part of the United States, but that is true.”
Julian Assange responded: “Working as a journalist I encouraged my source to provide information that was said to be classified in order to publish that information. I believe that the First Amendment protected that activity, but I accept that as written it’s a violation of the Espionage Act statute.”
Barry Pollack, Assange’s attorney added: “(Assange) believes that the conduct of issue should be protected by the First Amendment but understands that no court has held that there is a First Amendment defense to the Espionage Act, and is pleading guilty on that basis.”
What Did Assange Do?
Assange “conspired” with Chelsea Manning, who was in the U.S. Army in Iraq. Manning transmitted files and videos to Assange. Manning was later pardoned after seven years of a 35-year sentence by President Obama.
The most shocking item sent to Assange was a video that showed US soldiers in a helicopter firing indiscriminately on innocent and defenseless civilians in a plaza in Baghdad.
Two questions emerge from this incident. How did wrongdoing by U.S. soldiers threaten National Security? Secondly, Assange is an Australian citizen, not an American. How can he be tried under U.S. law?
Several media organizations have mistakenly reported that Assange was being prosecuted for stealing Hillary Clinton’s email files. In fact, all his organization, Wikileaks, did was publicize the files after they were on the internet. The emails were apparently stolen by insiders in the Clinton campaign. Assange was never charged with wrongdoing in this matter.
How Did Julian Assange Avoid 175 Years in a US Maximum Security Prison?
Times have changed while Assange was confined. The US Empire is no longer all-powerful. There is something called the Global South, which represents a new spirit among most of the countries of the world (even Australia is feeling it). These countries represent most of the humans on this planet and most of the wealth. Even if some of their leaders don’t care about Assange, their people sure do. The force of these ordinary people, their organizations, and intellectuals was overwhelmingly powerful.
Secondly, journalists in the U.S. and around the world were frightened by the implications of this pseudo-legal attack on Assange. More and more individual journalists, their unions, and free speech organizations were speaking out.
Last, but not least, President Biden, who may have personally hated Assange and all he stood for, is now confronted with the realities of an election year. Biden did not want crowds of demonstrators shouting out “Free Julian Assange,” “Protect Free Speech,” “Abolish Espionage Laws,” and other disruptions of his campaign.
In the end, the Empire suffered another defeat because it didn’t understand how weak it really is.
In Memoriam – Ringo Hallinan:
The Left Coast mourns its good friend and mentor, Conn “Ringo” Hallinan, who died of cancer June 19. Ringo offered to write the Foreward to Editor James R Smith’s new book, “Chaos and Disorder” even though he was already feeling severe pain. A few days later and ahead of time, the Foreward arrived from Ringo. Needless to say with Ringo, it needed no editing.
Ringo was a journalist’s journalist, both practicing and teaching for most of his life. Notably, he was the Managing Editor of the West Coast People’s World until it ceased publication in the early 2000s. He was also the head of the UC Santa Cruz Journalism School for 23 years. Until recently, he wrote a regular column, “Dispatches from the Edge,” which was published by the “Institute for Policy Studies (IPS),” and “Foreign Policy in Focus.”
Ringo was one of the famous Hallinan family, who over the past 100 years, played a key role in making San Francisco one of the most pro-union and progressive cities in the country.
Lately, Ringo had taken an interest in scanning word by word the articles sent out by The Left Coast. His comments helped make this wanna-be news source better than it would have been without him. A memorial is tentatively planned for sometime in August in the Bay Area.