When it comes to dispensing with an inconvenient critic, Saudi Arabia and the United States sure differ on means of destruction.
Saudi Arabia’s ruler Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), upset by critical US resident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, simply channeled the Queen of Hearts in Alice In Wonderland and shouted "Off with his head." Compliant MbS assassins cornered Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, dispensed with his head, and other body parts as well, to feed to the fishes.
The US, faced with a similar inconvenient critic, US war crimes outing Australian journalist, editor, publisher and activist Julian Assange, took the slow, less blood curdling route: years of life degrading extralegal persecution.
Assange started WikiLeaks in 2006, dedicated to exposing nations’ dirty laundry through leaking classified info related to governmental corruption and war crimes.
He ran afoul of Uncle Sam in April, 2010 when he released the damning video "Collateral Murder" showing US military personnel laughing as they obliterated 2 journalists along with 10 other innocents in an Iraq helicopter bombing. Coupled with his release of Afghan and Iraq war logs, Assange moved up to Journalist No. 1 on America’s hit list.
The last 12 years have been like the Steven King novel "Misery," with Assange playing the role of the tortured protagonist Paul Sheldon. Just 7 months after the damning video release, US friendly Sweden issued an international warrant for Assange’s arrest for sexual misconduct, including rape against 2 women Assange claimed were consensual relationships. Fearing the charge was a pretext for his eventual extradition to the US for his real crime of outing US war crimes, Assange jumped bail in London, taking refuge in Equator’s embassy there.
It took 9 years for Sweden to drop all charges against Assange. But his 7 year imprisonment in the Equator embassy ended when Equator, at the behest of Uncle Sam, withdrew their asylum, allowing the UK to barge in and arrest him in April, 2019, on bail jumping charges. Assange was off to a UK prison for a 50 week sentence, then an extended stay while UK extradition hearings linger on for 2 more years. Once his appeals are dispensed with, the mentally and physically declining Assange will be off to a final, lifetime stop in a US hoosegow.
The US won’t admit it but they’d likely prefer Assange dead. Why have a trial for being a pesky journalist that will publicly dredge up decades of US war crimes in the Middle East?
We could see the fist bump between President Biden and Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman at their recent lovefest in the Saudi capital. We can only imagine MbS telling Joe, "You American’s are too soft on your critics. We Saudis quickly ‘slice and dice’….and no more inconvenient critic."
All things considered, Assange’s fate may be worse.
Walt Zlotow became involved in antiwar activities upon entering University of Chicago in 1963. He is current president of the West Suburban Peace Coalition based in the Chicago western suburbs. He blogs daily on antiwar and other issues at www.heartlandprogressive.blogspot.com.
Trump wanted the CIA to abduct Assange, then kill him.
And Hillary wanted to use a drone. Biden calls him a “high tech terrorist”. So, that is what our last two presidential elections offered us. Trump, Clinton and Biden. Liberty unrepresented.
Critic, journalist or traitor? It all depends on the laws in place doesn’t it? I’ve never really understood the uproar about the death of fake journalist Khashoggi,not compared to an actual journalist like Assange. Of all the crimes committed by that regime I’m perhaps LEAST worried about this one. The guy was a mouthpiece/propagandists for their throne, he palled around with terrorists and Leaders who were as bad as any terrorists around. Live by the sword die by the sword and it’s their country and their laws and if they think he’s a traitor, which frankly speaking he probably was, that’s not actually my business.
If I’m going to support destroying diplomatic ties with a nation, it’s not going to be based on the death of one scumbag like him, it would be in regards to the deaths of actual innocent people, the blood of which flows freely in the Kingdom.
And WE are the country that is supposed to value freedom of speech and the rule of law and all that BS, what do I care what Saudi Does to one of it’s palace insider turncoats? I worry about our laws because those laws are the only laws I can supposedly do something about, same thing for our criminals in office, they alone are my concern.
If anything is interesting at all about the Khashoggi Vs Assange Debate it’s the double standard in regards to how our press treats the two. They act as if Khashoggi was an actual journalist and that Assange is NOT. What a joke. I don’t actually believe Khashoggi was a journalist at all, he was a paid propagandist, first for their Terrorists supporting Crown and then for ours. Do you think this guy was really going to dish out the dirt on the Bush Family relationship with the King and the Bin Laden family or anything that actually matters??? LOL If you do you are naive.
And one more thing, our ignorant press and the shmucks in Washington only fell into this trap because they wanted to make Trump look bad, that is the ONLY reason why they ever pushed this story in the first place. If this same event had taken place when Obama was in office or Biden, it would never had made headlines. At best it would have been mentioned in passing and filed under the “oh well, it’s Saudi Arabia” Column at worse they would have looked into his history of palling around with terrorists and covering up the crimes of the regime.
Our Keystone Propagandists shot themselves in the foot yet again with this one. They wanted to make Trump look bad so much that it backfired. But that’s also why they labeled the propagandist turned traitor as a journalist and wrote every story as if the Kingdom was killing some kind of hero, rather than yet another Saudi Scumbag who’s journalistic career consisted of cleaning up the crimes of the Royal Family.
Personally it grinds my gears to have people compare Khashoggi with Assange, as if they are somehow equal. One spent his life exposing government crime the other spent his life covering them up and it’s naive to believe he was suddenly going to become a different guy. He simply had a new boss, that doesn’t mean he became a moral guy who would print the truth. He would still be performing the same job, just for new leaders. Khashoggi was never really a journalist and our press wouldn’t have treated his as such, not if it wasn’t seen as a way to make Trump look bad. Talk about short sighted idiots.
And when they had a mass execution of 81, nary a peep.
Exactly.
Quite the headline. Blunt but true.