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The Julian Assange extradition hearings begin today

Indeed. I don’t like Assange at all, but he has a legitimate journalistic defence for the majority of this. Conceptually I don’t see it as that much different to say the Torygraph leaking the MPs expenses trough-feeding. The truth needed to come out about Iraq and the behaviour of our nation states. My issue with Assange came later when it became so obvious he was a highly self-interested and partisan game player. I fully support whistle-blowing and journalistic freedom to speak truth to power, and really that is his defence here.
 
Indeed. I don’t like Assange at all, but he has a legitimate journalistic defence for the majority of this. Conceptually I don’t see it as that much different to say the Torygraph leaking the PMs expenses trough-feeding. The truth needed to come out about Iraq and the behaviour of our nation states. My issue with Assange came later when it became so obvious he was a highly self-interested and partisan game player. I fully support whistle-blowing and journalistic freedom to speak truth to power, and really that is his defence here.
Yes. I share some of your reservations about Assange as a person but the ability of journalists to hold power to account must be defended. The silence of most supposedly liberal journalists about the Assange case is shameful, in my view.
 
Yes. I share some of your reservations about Assange as a person but the ability of journalists to hold power to account must be defended. The silence of most supposedly liberal journalists about the Assange case is shameful, in my view.
Indeed.

First they came for the journalists, and I said nothing. Oops, that was a mistake, what with me being a journalist too...
 
Good on her. It will be very interesting to see how Starmer responds given he is an experienced lawyer and will clearly understand the legal issues in play. My guess he’ll be found sitting on Labour’s well used ‘moral ambiguity’ fence.

PS The problem with this is Assange is such a thoroughly unlikeable person a lot of people will look the other way rather than focus on the core principle of the freedom to hold state power to account. The fact he was a useful idiot for Putin, Trump, Brexit, possibly a rapist, and obviously a coward should be ignored entirely. This one needs fighting on the premise of journalistic freedom alone.
 
I'm still awaiting news of the trials of the mass murderers in that helicopter.

No chance of that happening as the investigation was closed 10 years ago.

It's obvious that the editing of the "Collateral Murder" video was done to make the US forces look as bad as possible (and they are certainly not helped by the commentary from the aircrew) however it was part of a wider situation where the US forces had been fired upon in that area, and given you can clearly see weapons in the group on the ground that were fired upon (including an RPG) then their rules of engagement won't have been breached. The video leaves out all the surrounding context, including the US forces evacuating the injured children immediately afterwards. The reporters were clearly with the armed folks on the grounds so must have known they were taking a crazy risk. There is a lot of material available about the wider situation however I can understand that anyone who's only source was the Wikileaks video might think a war crime had been committed. That's one of the issues I have with Assange in fact (other than him being a generally odious individual of course, which I doubt anyone disputes), is that it's clear they're pursuing an agenda that is a long way from just reporting the facts.

It's very difficult to avoid spin about this stuff - for example that article at the start of this thread doesn't help itself by its own obvious bias - when just reporting the facts would be better.
 
No chance of that happening as the investigation was closed 10 years ago.

It's obvious that the editing of the "Collateral Murder" video was done to make the US forces look as bad as possible (and they are certainly not helped by the commentary from the aircrew) however it was part of a wider situation where the US forces had been fired upon in that area, and given you can clearly see weapons in the group on the ground that were fired upon (including an RPG) then their rules of engagement won't have been breached. The video leaves out all the surrounding context, including the US forces evacuating the injured children immediately afterwards. The reporters were clearly with the armed folks on the grounds so must have known they were taking a crazy risk. There is a lot of material available about the wider situation however I can understand that anyone who's only source was the Wikileaks video might think a war crime had been committed. That's one of the issues I have with Assange in fact (other than him being a generally odious individual of course, which I doubt anyone disputes), is that it's clear they're pursuing an agenda that is a long way from just reporting the facts.

It's very difficult to avoid spin about this stuff - for example that article at the start of this thread doesn't help itself by its own obvious bias - when just reporting the facts would be better.

I have no doubt that a serious war crime was committed.
 
The Assange extradition is on Al Jazeera today, with footage and interviews. I've seen nothing on the Tory BBC and Sky. Says it all really.

Something like 439 lawyers have signed a document which says it will be dangerous to extradite Assange to America. Such a move will work against the freedom of the press.

The hyprocrisy of the Tory Party over Assange it plain to see. Johnson and his Harpies wouldn't extradite a British-based journalist to China if they uncovered a major story there.

Jack
 
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Plenty of context here, including the evacuation of the two children:


People will make up their own minds but it's hard not to see the later bit of the video as cold-blooded murder; some of the comments from the helicopter crew are sickening, of course.

And, lest we forget, the USA invaded Iraq. The entire escapade was a war crime.
 
The USA is the worlds worst terrorist by a huge margin and at least as guilty as Al Qaeda as witnessed by the state terrorism that was Korea, Iraq, Vietnam, Granada, Afghanistan and the Bay of Pigs etc etc. The mere presence of the American helicopter was a war crime and the machine gunning of journalists and ambulance crew plus innocent passers by was sickening. Going to war, not to defend the people of a country from imminent invasion or aggression but for financial reasons, to maintain profits plundered by controlling proxy states etc etc makes USA the most morally bankrupt nation since Hitlers 3rd Reich.
 


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