VP: They're not even informed, which is a question in a liberal democracy about who is in charge of the military? Who is in charge of the shadows? Right after 9/11, Vice President Dick Cheney famously said, "Well now it's time to work in the shadows." Who's in charge of the shadows? Vice President Cheney? In a liberal democracy you assume that the political branch, which includes the State Department, is leading some of these matters and is the one you hold accountable. After all, Chris, you can't hold the shadows accountable. We don't know what's happening in the shadows. If you're going to permit the shadows to operate -- people to operate in the shadows -- then the only agency that's accountable to the citizenry is the State Department. I don't mean to sound naive here. I don't mean to sound like "Oh my god, how silly of him," because what happens is, there's a kind of patina of cynicism that enters the public. The public says, "Of course it's going to be like that." That "of course" is the road to authoritarianism. You have to hold your values very close to you, not just close to your chest but you've got to hold those values out there in public because once you start taking a cynical attitude to the institutions and ideology of your society, you're going to end up giving license for authoritarianism.
CH: We've just watched with the seizure of Assange, the violation of several laws, of international law, the right to political asylum, the violation of sovereignty under the Ecuadorian institution. You can't -- on Ecuadorian soil which is what the embassy is considered -- you can't send foreign police in. The whole imprisonment of Assange, who has never committed a crime or even -- certainly within Britain -- been charged for a crime. This whole bail thing was resolved. The Swedish charges were dropped. This is a kind of microcosm of how these global elites and this imperial power creates the kind of facade of law, but behind the scenes eviscerate the law. It's how we in the United States have a right to privacy with no privacy. It's how we have due process with no due process. It's how our rights are supposedly protected and the executive authorizes -- under Obama -- assassinate Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old son. Both U.S. citizens. It's how you have the mirage of free elections that are corporate funded, corporate controlled and reported on by a corporate media. I look at what's happened to Assange as a window into the breakdown of the rule of law.
VP: Let's be frank here. There was a case in Sweden. The statute of limitations runs to August 2020. The Swedish government can run the charges against him. But this arrest inside the Ecuadorian Embassy by, in a sense, an invading British police force, has nothing to do with the statute of limitations in Sweden. OK, Julian, there is a case against you in Sweden, go and face the charges. That's a perfectly acceptable thing to talk about. I don't think one should be evasive about it. On the other hand, it's not about Sweden. This is about the United States. We should be clear about that. Sweden is being used as an alibi to bring him to the United States and face a Guantanamo situation in terms of legality. There is something very off-putting happening not only in the British government, not only with the United States, but with Ecuador. Right after Julian Assange is evicted, essentially, by the Ecuadorian government, in Quito, Ecuador, a young open-source advocate, privacy advocate, Swedish national by the name of Ola Bini, was picked up by Ecuadorian authorities. They began to leak information to the press saying that he's a friend of Julian Assange. They began to say that he's working with the previous government to overthrow this government -- all ridiculous statements! But coming at an interesting moment, when the government of Lenà n Moreno, inside Ecuador, is facing enormous pressure because of leaked documents call the "INA Papers" which show flagrant evidence of corruption.
CH: There are pictures of him eating lobster in his hotel room and his wife talking about trips to Switzerland. We'll come back to that. When we come back, we'll continue our conversation about the arrest of Julian Assange with the historian Vijay Prashad.
Break
CH: Welcome back to "On Contact." We continue our conversation about the arrest of Julian Assange with the historian Vijay Prashad. You were talking about the Ecuadorian government before the break.
VP: Generally, in the media, outside places like Ecuador, when something happens in the arrest of Julian Assange immediate focus goes to Donald Trump. What is Trump interest? Or the focus goes to Theresa May. What's her interest? But there is an Ecuadorian story here which is very important. We have a government in Ecuador that is desperate to get a loan from the International Monetary Fund, which has approached the fund, which is trying to mend relations with the United States. I'm not casting aspersions on the government of Ecuador. These are things that are in the public record. They are seeking the loan. They want to improve relations with the United States government. We know in the world of diplomacy, when you talk to ambassadors and so on, that there are quid pro quos. It's very clear that the quid pro quo was they're going to say, "off with Assange" and then all things are good with Ecuador. And inside Ecuador they started this very bizarre campaign to say that the INA Papers , which were leaked recently, which showed deep corruption in the Lenà n Moreno government and him personally. ... These are things people don't like to have in the public record, about how they live and so on. Nonetheless, this is out there now. They want to suggest that this is a sort of malignant plot by somebody. They've said, two Russian hackers and a Swede who has seen Julian Assange 12 times and who travels with former government officials, Ricardo Patià �o, a close associate of Rafael Correa and that they are "
CH: We should say Rafael Correa, the former president who gave Julian Assange political asylum.
VP: Right, and then worked closely to get him his citizenship
CH: And is now living in exile.
VP: And is now himself living in exile in Europe, exactly. So, they concocted this quite delicious story. The media loves a delicious story. My god, Chris, two Russian hackers! The moment you've got a headline "Two Russian Hackers" it's all done.
CH: Well, you know, they shut down the electric grid in Vermont "
VP: This Russian hacker business is going to become something that governments are going to use routinely. It doesn't matter what the veracity. So, this is their story. They're trying to deflect attention from a very damaging set of revelations by saying that Julian Assange, plus a Russian hacker, plus a Swedish man who is a world-renowned software designer, intellectual of the internet, they're all been maligning us. Therefore, we need to basically get rid of them and what they're saying about us is not true. Innocent people are essentially being put on a sacrificial block in order to clean up the reputation of [these] people. I didn't make up those stories. I didn't "photoshop" those pictures. Those are real pictures. Why don't you address the real story? In the same way the United States government has refused to address the story of war crimes. This is [also] happening in Ecuador.
I want to say something very specific about the United States government and war crimes. The International Criminal Court has been looking very seriously at the question of U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan, Iraq and so on. The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, normally comes and addresses the U.N. Security Council. She gives a report on what the ICC has been doing, the criminal court, what's in the docket, what are they looking at and so on. But to enter the U.N. in New York she must land in John F. Kennedy International Airport, which is sovereign U.S. territory. Well last week they were informed that the visa that permits her to land in the United States so that she can come to, essentially, U.N. territory, that visa is not guaranteed. What is going on here? You don't actually want to talk about the real issues, actual textual and visual evidence of war criminal activity in one case, the United States and in the Ecuadorian case you don't want to talk about actual evidence of corruption, personal corruption plus institutional. You don't want to talk about that, so you start demonizing people.
CH: Well, in a functioning judicial system, the people who committed the war crimes that Chelsea Manning exposed, would be put on trial. But of course, Chelsea Manning is in a jail cell because she is refusing to go before the grand jury that is investigating Assange, without her lawyer, and testify. She's been under tremendous pressure, she spent seven years in a military prison, to implicate Assange in the theft of the documents. She has said repeatedly that it's untrue and under pressure, especially under solitary confinement, she tried to commit suicide twice in these dark sites. If Assange is extradited, he won't be flying back on a British Airways flight. He'll have a hood over himself and be shackled. He will enter the underworld that is so well known to many Muslims around the globe.
I want to talk about the concerted effort to smear Assange. There was a leaked document that was prepared by the Cyber Counterintelligence Assessment Branch [of the U.S. Defense Department] on March 8, 2008. It called on the U.S. to build a campaign to eradicate "the feeling of trust of WikiLeaks and their center of gravity" and to destroy Assange's reputation. The press became the echo chamber for this.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
9
8
4
