"Daniel Ellsberg is praised for his death by the same media that let Assange rot in prison"

Right, after announcing his death last Friday, at the age of 92, a wave of tributes toDaniel Ellsberg. His leak of Pentagon papers in 1971 revealed that Washington officials systematically lied for decades about proceedingsUS militaryVietnam.

(Article Jonathan Cook republished with MiddleEastEye.net)

Revealing 7 pages of papers and subsequent legal battles to halt further publication by the fresh York Times and the Washington Post, they helped end the war a fewer years later.

As advisor to U.S. Secretary of defence Robert McNamara in 1960, Ellsberg saw first-hand violent Pentagon military operations that caused mass civilian casualties. full villages were burned and captured Vietnamese were tortured or executed. Deceptively the United States calls them "Pacific programmes".

But most of those who present greet Ellsberg as "American hero", she was much more reluctant to defend Ellsberg of our time: founder of WikiLeaks Julian Assange.

For years, Assange was rotting in a London maximum safety prison, while the Biden administration demands his extradition under allegations that absurdly identify his publication of the War Journals in Afghanistan and Iraq – modern Pentagon papers – with "spying".

Like Ellsberg, Assange revealed the way Western states systematically lied erstwhile they committed war crimes. Like Ellsberg, he was fraudulently marked as a threat to national safety and charged with espionage. Like Ellsberg, if he is found guilty, he is facing over 100 years in prison. Like Elsberg, Assange learned that the U.S. legislature does not want to usage its powers to limit government abuse.

But unlike the Ellsberg case, the courts consistently side with Assange's stalkers, not his side for throwing light on state crime. By contrast, western media mostly silent as the loop tightened around Assange's neck.

Similarities in Assange and Ellsberg's actions - and clear differences in results - are hard to ignore. The same journalists and publications, which now praise Ellsberg for his historical act of courage, allow, even for years of silence, the movements of the western capitals of demonizing Assange for his contemporary act of heroism.

Peaceful Doggies

Hypocrisy did not go unnoticed by Ellsberg. He was 1 of Assange's loudest defenders. So loud that most media felt obligated in their obituary to reference to this fact, even if it's in vain.

Ellsberg testified on behalf of Assange at an extradition proceeding in London in 2020, Noting that the couple's actions were identical. But that was not entirely right.

Assange published secret papers passed on to WikiLeaks by Chelsea Manning, as did the fresh York Times published secrets passed to them by Ellsberg. Given that media freedom is protected by the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States, while reporting of irregularities by an authoritative is not, Assange's treatment is even more perverse and offensive than Ellsberg's.

Unlike his case, added Ellsberg, the founder of WikiLeaks will never receive Fair hearing in the United States. His trial has already been assigned to court in the east Virginia District, where US intelligence agencies are located.

At the end of last year, erstwhile Assange's chances of extradition to the US increased, Ellsberg admitted that he had secretly received backup leaked war journals in Afghanistan and Iraq, in case WikiLeaks cannot make public details of US and UK crime.

Ellsberg pointed out that his possession of papers made him equally guilty of Assange under draconian charges of "spying" the Justice Department. During his interview with the BBC, he demanded that And he was indicted..

If the praise given to Ellsberg in death shows anything, then the degree to which the self-proclaimed guards of western state power were tamed over the next decades into the most submissive of the peace dogs.

In Assange's case, the courts and media of the establishment clearly acted as power additives alternatively than controlling it. And for this reason, if not otherwise, Western countries gain more and more control over their citizens at a time erstwhile mass digital surveillance It's easier than ever.

Spying day and night

For those who reluctantly give Assange praise to Ellsberg, it is worth remembering how each of them was seen by American officials in his eras.

Henry Kissinger, president Richard Nixon's national safety advisor and then Secretary of State, named Ellsberg "The most dangerous man in America".

Mike Pompeo, manager of president Donald Trump's Central Intelligence Agency, announced Assange and WikiLeaks "nonstate, hostile intelligence services". CIA Pompeo besides secretly planned ways Assange's kidnapping or murder London.

Supporters of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange take part in the "Night Carnival for Assange" march in London on 11 February 2023 (AFP)

Both Ellsberg and Assange were illegally watched by government agencies.

In Ellsberg's case, Nixon's officials overheard his calls and tried to dig up dirt by stealing files from psychiatrist's office. The same squad conducted a break-in into Watergate, a celebrated revelation by American media that yet led to Nixon's collapse.

For Assange CIA She was spying on him. day and night after he received political asylum at the Ecuador embassy, and even violated his privileged conversations with lawyers. Surprisingly, this violation of the law has not been noticed by the media, even though this should be the only reason to reject the extradition case against him.

Nixon officials tried fake the Ellsberg trial, offering the justice during the hearings the directorship of the national Bureau of Investigation.

In Assange's case, a series judicial irregularities and apparent conflicts of interestharassed the proceedingsagain ignored by the media establishment.

Above the law

But if the modern White home is as hostile to transparency as its predecessors - and armed with more secret tools for the surveillance of critics than always before - the media and courts offer far little redress than in Ellsberg's time.

Even Obama's administration understood the dangers of attacking Assange. His relation with Manning was no different from that of the fresh York Times with Ellsberg. Each of them made public the state's wrongdoing after a disillusioned authoritative gave them secret documents.

Assange's pursuit was seen as precedentwho can trap any publisher or media who has made public state secrets, no substance how scandalous crimes have been revealed.

Because of this Obama He fired a full gun. against informants, closing them more than all his predecessors combined. Signalists were denied the right to defend themselves in the public interest. State secrecy was sacred even erstwhile it was abused to defend evidence of crime from public sight.

When asked if Obama would prosecute him through the courts, as Nixon did, Ellsberg responded"I'm certain president Obama would request life in my case."

It took a reckless Trump administration to go further, rejecting a long-standing legal discrimination between an authoritative who reveals secret papers in violation of a contract of employment, and a writer publisher who reveals these papers in accordance with the work to hold the powerful to account.

Now Biden decided to follow Trump's footsteps, continuing Assange's show trial. The fresh presumption is that it is illegal for anyone - a state official, a media official, an average citizen - to uncover the criminal activity of an all-powerful state.

In Assange's case, the White home openly maneuvers to gain credit for officially standing above the law.

He's out of sight.

Under these circumstances, it could be assumed that courts and the media would unite to uphold fundamental democratic rights, specified as the free press, and impose work on government officials who broke the law.

In the 1970s, nevertheless imperfect, American media gradually solved the themes of the Watergate scandal until they revealed the unconstitutional behaviour of the Nixon administration. At the same time, the liberal press supported Ellsberg, making him a joint case in the conflict to hold the executive authority accountable.

Nixon's lawyer General, John Mitchell, charged Ellsberg for espionage and charged The same fresh York Times. Confirming that the paper had undermined national security, it threatened it with devastating legal action. The Times ignored threats and continued to publish, forcing the Justice Department to get a warrant.

Meanwhile, courts sided with both Ellsberg and the media in their legal battles. In 1973, the Los Angeles national court dismissed the case against Ellsberg before it could be presented to the jury, Accusing the government about gross misconduct and illegal collection of evidence against him.

Meanwhile, the ultimate Court prioritised freedom of the press by denying the government prior restraint. Eventually, these and another cases forced Nixon to leave office in disgrace.

The contrast with Assange's treatment by the media and the courts couldn't have been tougher.

Media, even the "liberal" media, with which he collaborated on Afghan and Iraqi journals, including the fresh York Times and the Guardian, sought to show even the most circumstantial kind of solidarity, preferring to distance themselves from it instead. To a large degree they conspired in American and British efforts to propose that Assange is not "a real journalist"and so does not deserve the protection of the First Amendment.

These media have worked effectively with Washington, suggesting that their cooperation with Assange in no way does not imply them In his expected "crime".

As a result, the media barely took the problem to study his interrogations or to explain how the courts turned into knots, ignoring the most blatant legal obstacles to his extradition: specified as a peculiar exclusion in British extradition treaty from the US 2007 extradition on political matters.

Unlike Ellsberg, who became a celebrity, Assange disappeared from public view by the states he exposed and mostly forgotten by the media that should defend his cause.

Shortening of courses

Ellsberg emerged from his court triumph over the Pentagon Papers, to argue: "Demistification and desacralization of the president has begun. It's like removing the Wizard from the land of Oz."

In this view, time proved that he was sadly wrong, which he admitted.

In fresh months Ellsberg has become an increasingly expressive critic of U.S. conduct in the war in Ukraine. He compared them with lies told by 4 administrations – Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson – to hide Washington's degree of engagement in Vietnam before the US publically revealed their land war.

Ellsberg warned that the U.S. is conducting a likewise unspoken war in Ukraine – a substitute, utilizing Ukrainians as cannon meat – to "weaken the Russians". As in Vietnam, the White home gradually and secretly increased US engagement.

As in Vietnam, Western leaders hid the fact that the war was in stalemate, which inevitably led to a large number of Ukrainians and Russians losing their lives in a fruitless struggle.

Hidden, early function of erstwhile British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in obstructing peace talks between Russia and Ukraine called "a crime against humanity".

With mention to the recurring story, noted: "This is simply a awakening that is painful in many ways".

First of all, Ellsberg feared that the Western war device – addicted to the cold war, hidden under the supposedly "defensive" umbrella of NATO – wanted to face China again.

In 2021, erstwhile Biden's administration intensified its hostile attitude towards Beijing, Ellsberg revealed that Eisenhower officials had developed secret plans for the attack on Beijing in 1958 China atomic weapons. This was during the earlier Taiwan Strait crisis.

"At this point I am much more aware... How small has changed in these critical aspects of the threat of atomic war and how limited the effectiveness of limiting what we did" - said in an interview shortly before he died.

What Ellsberg understood most full is the desperate request - if humanity is to last - for both more whistleblowers to uncover the crimes of their states and for persistent media supervisors to give them full support.

Watching media abandon Assange to their stalkers, Ellsberg could only draw 1 possible conclusion: that the chances of humanity were shortening overnight.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect mediate East Eye's editorial policy.

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Translated by Google Translator

source:https://www.naturalnews.com/