The Mindsets of Empire: Who to persecute
The persecution of Julian Assange, in particular, reveals a uniformity across the landscapes of empire, from the U.S. to the U.K. to Sweden to anywhere.
In one of my previous posts on The Notions of Empire, examining some of what 'valid career paths' and 'invalid career paths' reveals to us, about the functioning and systems of the empires, I highlighted how Julian Assange followed what would mildly be called an 'invalid career path'.
Assange founded WikiLeaks for whistleblowers to be able to publish truths about the functionings of empire. As the journalist Glenn Greenwald has repeatedly and emphatically said: Assange is the most accomplished journalist of his generation. He has broken more stories than the rest of them combined.
The most notable is the files on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq from the whistleblower Chelsea Manning, revealing U.S. war crimes.
The book The Trial of Julian Assange was written by Nils Melzer, a former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture. There have been summaries of this book by Jonathan Cook on Middle East Eye and by John Jiggens on Pearls and Irritations:
The Persecution of Julian Assange by Jonathan Cook on Middle East Eye
John Jiggens
There were local police in Sweden who instinctively knew that the U.S. would want to see Assange persecuted. As Jiggens summarises:
The multi-lingual Melzer has two chapters, Swedish Judicial Persecution and Anglo-Swedish Extradition Trial, exposing the legal charade behind the (non-existent!) rape charges that the mainstream media continually used to blacken Assange’s name. Despite the endless tabloid headlines, in nine years the Swedish case never advanced beyond being a ‘preliminary investigation’. There were never any charges. The Swedish prosecutors seemed singularly disinterested in interviewing Assange or resolving the case. Assange’s preliminary investigation holds the record for the longest preliminary investigation in Swedish history: it dragged on for nine years, and was conveniently dropped when the US extradition request replaced it.
Shortly before Assange left for Sweden, US intelligence consulting firm Stratfor had outlined the strategy for US allies to adopt with Assange:
‘Pile on. Move him from country to country to face various charges for the next 25 years. But seize everything he and his family own, to include every person linked to Wiki.’
So, when two women approached the Swedish police to get Assange to have an STD test, the rape narrative was quickly imposed. Melzer devotes a substantial part of the book to his examination of the Swedish rape narrative and his language skills, his fluency in Swedish, coupled with his authority as a UN Special Rapporteur to obtain evidence about the Swedish prosecution, make Melzer’s assessment damning. The Swedish Prosecution Authority never pursued justice or the law, neither for Assange, nor the two women, Melzer concludes: “All three were instrumentalised by the authorities for the purpose of political persecution and deterrence.”
The mindsets of empire are so widely uniform enough that whether you are
- a police officer or prosecutor deciding how to prosecute someone
- an employee of YouTube deciding who to demonetise, or whose ads you shouldn't show, or whose videos you should remove
- Revolutionary Blackout Network has had videos removed on their main account and on other accounts, and yet their main accounts is the only one to get banned. Richard Medhurst is a recent journalist to have experienced demonetisation on his Youtube channel and have videos removed. Glenn Greenwald has had YouTube refuse to accept his ads, and TikTok has permanently banned his show System Update.
- or a mainstream liberal journalist plastering 'far-right' on every person challenging or questioning empire
- see what happened to Roger Waters for challenging Israel — Glenn Greenwald adds that "following our interview, hotels refuse to serve Roger Waters"
- or, for that matter, a hotel manager deciding who to let in!
- etc.
you're likely to be playing your part perfectly.
Without a second thought.
In short: BANNED FOR LIFE!!!
