As the second day of the extradition hearing for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange continues in London, the lines of argumentation of both sides are taking shape. While the US tries to argue that Wikileaks publishing harmed individuals who aided the US government, there is little evidence to back the claim. Will the UK courts roll over for a Washington that would like to see, as former FBI Director Comey suggested, “Assange’s head on a pike”? Watch today’s Liberty Report:
Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.
So Assange did some damage to the government of the United States? Thank God, I can’t think of anything more heroic than that. He will never, ever get a fair trial. A fair trial would not result in conviction, and that is simply unacceptable to the people running the show.
Bitching about outing American agents for fixing democracy in the Third World (even if that were true) is a bit like bitching about outing a Mafioso for fixing the Special Olympics.
On a related theme, just want to point out that Obama did in fact commute Chelsea Manning’s sentence. Two cheers for him for that, at least
Indeed, that and the JCPOA were the high points of his Administration. There wasn’t much else about it to celebrate, just as it is difficult to get upbeat over much that Trump has done.
He made some moves toward peace with Cuba as well.
I wasn’t a fan. Every president seems to be a little worse than the one before him, generally speaking. And Trump so far isn’t an exception.
I agree. While I was not a fan of Reagan, it does seem that every president after him has been worse than the one immediately preceding, Trump being the worst so far.
I didn’t mean to give the impression that I thought Obama was anything close to acceptable overall. I did not even vote in the 2008 general election, one of the reasons being that I found most of the choices to be abysmal.
Considering the fact George W Bush started *both* the Afghanistan and Iraq wars anew I’d be genuinely curious to hear how anyone thinks Obama was in any worse. I’d have to get down in the weeds on how bad the foreign policies of presidents have been beyond mainstream coverage, but AFAIK Bush was abysmal
“Considering the fact George W Bush started *both* the Afghanistan and Iraq wars anew I’d be genuinely curious to hear how anyone thinks Obama was in any worse.”
Two issues on which Obama was worse than Bush that come immediately to mind would be immigration (Bush tried to talk sense into the GOP on it; Obama deported more people than any president in history up to that time) and healthcare (Obama managed to make a bad system even worse).
On foreign policy, Obama kept all of Bush’s wars and got himself some new ones.
“On foreign policy, Obama kept all of Bush’s wars and got himself some new ones.”
Yemen may be even more atrocious than Iraq II in some ways, including the fact that genocide actually appears to be an explicit goal. And Syria? There we were actually arming jihadists.
Assange has already been sentenced to death by torture for high crimes against empire. The trial is simply a grotesque way to celebrate this fact. Riots are the only thing that can save him now. Burning dumpsters and smashed bank windows from Washington to Sidney. This isn’t an endorsement. It’s just a simple ugly truth. With that being said, you won’t find me crying over shattered glass, not when shattered lives hang in the balance.