Ugly Texas

by E.R. Bills / April 16th, 2024

My wife’s dad is from Grenada, and we visited there last October. It was an incredible place and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, but, when I was speaking with one of my father-in-law’s relatives, I unknowingly committed a geo-political faux pas.

It had been a while since I had traveled to a less commercialized destination and, unaware that the relevant categorizations had changed, I said something about being proud of myself because I thought I had gotten too soft to travel in a Third World country. A group of us stayed in a modest seaside villa. The air conditioning was iffy. The water pressure often barely a trickle. My wife and I didn’t have hot water for a week. I bathed in the ocean or the pool. The steering wheel was on the opposite side of the car, and we drove on the opposite side of the patched or crumbling, precipitous roads. And we amateur-Anthony Bourdained our way through practically every meal. We were forced outside our comfort zone, and I found it wonderful, exhilarating and, ultimately, therapeutic.

My father-in-law’s relation listened patiently and then politely corrected me. “The term ‘Third World’ is discouraged, now,” they said. “These days, we say “developing nation.”

I promptly apologized and we continued our conversation. We discussed my travels and many of the developing nations I’d had adventures in over the years. I think they realized I wasn’t the average “Ugly American.”

The term “developing nation” avoids the derogatory connotations of “Third World” nation which, in the last half of the 20th century referred to countries that were economically underdeveloped and had little or no affiliation with major or “First World” powers (i.e., Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, the United Kingdom, the United States, etc.). Many countries formerly dubbed “Third World” nations were also disparagingly deemed “Banana Republics,” which connoted small, poor nations often hamstrung by limited resources and sometimes led by despotic or authoritarian regimes big on corruption and economic exploitation. These countries usually functioned poorly for their general citizenry while disproportionately benefiting a specific “elite” group or class of individuals.

Today, this thought process often comes to mind when Lone Star politicians and pundits try to establish rube cred by threatening to secede from the United States. It simply demonstrates that they don’t know much about most of the rest of the world, much less their own state’s place or perception in the eyes of most of the rest of the world.

These days, America, itself, is hardly impressive or inspiring, specifically because it seems that only Americans are ignorant of their nation’s imperialist agenda. Everyone else knows.

And if so many people are attempting to migrate to the United States it’s not so much that anything is great here—it’s because they, like us, prefer being the boot rather than the ass. The United States bootheel hardly discriminates between the guilty and the innocent in foreign states.

But America as a whole is Camelot compared to Texas.

Texas is unrepentantly Third World and would become Third World on steroids if it seceded. And not because Texas is small, poor, has limited resources or lacks connections with First World powers—it certainly wouldn’t be considered a developing nation. It would be Third World because it’s governed by a rabid, despotic governor and legislature rife with corruption, keen on economic exploitation, and defiantly proud of functioning poorly for its citizenry while disproportionately benefiting a specific “elite” group or gaggle of entitled individuals. So much so that no one even bothers to deny it any more. And, this, trumpeted alongside blatant political chauvinism, gleeful censorship, innumerable challenges to fair representation and frequent, reprehensible threats to freedom of speech, reveals what we really are: ugly.

Ugly Texans.

While we may seem attractive to every Golden State “God and Guns” troglodyte, we are repulsive to decent, fair-minded people all over the world. We seem to aspire to a virulent checklist of vomitous superlatives like most sexist, most racist, most homophobic, most xenophobic, most fascist, most ignorant, and, yes, let’s throw it in—most unAmerican.

This is who we’ve become. These are the “values” our legislature champions.

If the United States was Europe, we’d be the Brexiting British. If the United States was Asia, we wouldn’t be Japan or even China—we’d be North Korea. We’re an international embarrassment full of clueless, separatist blowhards, and the Texas Lege is doing everything it can to ban mirrors.

FacebookTwitter

RedditEmail

Fort Worth native E. R. Bills is an award-winning journalist and author. His latest works include Tell-Tale Texas: Investigations in Infamous History and Letters from Texas, 2021-2023. Read other articles by E.R..

The North American Peace Movement at an Inflection Point

THE STALINIST VIEW

by Roger D. Harris / April 17th, 2024

The North American peace movement is contesting ongoing US wars in Ukraine and Palestine and preparations for war with China. Out of the fog of these wars, a clear anti-imperialist focus is emerging. Giving peace a chance has never been more plainly understood as opposition to what Martin Luther King, Jr., referred to as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world: my own government.”

Palestinian, Muslim and Arab, and anti-Zionist Jewish groups have been in the forefront of the anti-imperialist peace movement. With strong youth components, they are not confused by either relying on sell-out liberal Democrats (e.g., anti-Iraq War) or by utopian calls for leaderless organizations without concrete demands (e.g., Occupy). Nor have been distracted by individualistic expressions of anger by trashing small businesses or in adventuristic confrontations with the police.

The Palestinian resistance has radicalized millions worldwide. The popular demand for a permanent ceasefire in Palestine is leading to a still larger project to cease the US-led imperialist order.

The overall consciousness of the resurgent peace movement reflects the normalization of anti-imperialism as a leading current; antiwar sentiment is becoming explicitly anti-imperialist.

Evolving understanding of the Ukraine conflict

The peace movement recognizes that, although Hamas’s action of October 7 came as a surprise, it did not simply erupt out of the blue. The uprising had a 75-year gestation starting with the Nakba of 1948 and the establishment of the settler colonialist State of Israel.

Initially, there was less clarity regarding the events in Ukraine of February 24, 2022. With research and reflection, most of the movement came to understand the conflict did not begin that day. The supposedly “unprovoked” Russian intervention in Ukraine was sparked by NATO moving closer and closer to the Russian border, the 2014 Maidan coup, the sabotage of the Minsk agreements, etc.

A consensus is maturing in the antiwar movement that Ukraine is a proxy war by the US and its NATO allies to weaken Russia. Even key corporate press and government officials now recognize the conflict as a “full proxy war” by the US designed to use the Ukrainian people to mortally disable Russia.

Likewise, opinions are coalescing around recognizing that there is just one superpower with hundreds of foreign military bases, possession of the world’s reserve currency, and control of the SWIFT worldwide payment and transaction system. Simply reducing the conflict to one of contesting capitalists obscures the context of empire.

The antiwar movement may differ on whether to call February 24 an invasion, an incursion, or a special military operation to protect ethnic Russian regions of Ukraine under attack. But unity has been forged that the solution to the conflict is a negotiated settlement and that the US/NATO project of “winning” the war is a threat to world peace. The outlier is the Ukraine Solidarity Network (USN).

Still using the language of anti-imperialism, USN’s  left-leaning intellectuals and activists are opposed to a negotiated peace but champion a “victory” backed by the US and NATO. Further, they uphold the “right” of the US to fund what they personalize as a war against Putin. Their statement on the second anniversary of the war accuses Washington of having a “double standard” for supporting imperialism in Palestine but being on the side of justice in Ukraine. Other peace activists see USN’s opposition to the US involvement in Palestine, but not to its complicity in Ukraine, as a double standard.

The USN’s call for a Ukraine victory is consonant with the Democratic Party’s. In contrast, for example, the United National Antiwar Coalition’s (UNAC) position on Ukraine is: “No to NATO’s proxy war and Biden’s $80 billion military aid to Ukraine! No to Ukraine’s joining NATO!” Similarly, the Peace in Ukraine Coalition demands: “”STOP the weapons! START the talks!”

The emerging anti-imperialist peace movement sees the nature of US imperialism as systematic and not elective. The US empire is fundamentally imperialist; it is not a matter of choice.

First major antiwar conference since the Covid pandemic

In the first major antiwar conference since the Covid pandemic, UNAC brought together 400 activists in Saint Paul, MN, on April 5-7, under the banner of “decolonization and the fight against imperialism.”

Among the some fifty groups participating were the Alliance for Global Justice, American Muslims for Palestine, Black Alliance for Peace, CodePink, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, US Palestinian Community Network, and Workers World Party. Local organizations included Students for Justice in Palestine, Twin Cities Students for a Democratic Society, and the venerable Women Against Military Madness, who have been protesting weekly in the streets since 1982.

The immediacy of militant organizing was reported by Danaka Katovich of CodePink, Cody Urban of the Resist US Wars, Wyatt Miller of the Minneapolis Antiwar Committee, and a number of other youthful leaders.

Palestinian liberation against colonialism was a major focal point of the conference. Mnar Adley, editor of MintPress News, movingly described her experience of living under Israeli suppression. Today, she explained, “the Intifada has been globalized,” adding that the Palestinian resistance and the movement in its support have exposed the Democrats as the “bloodthirsty war-hungry party that it is.”

With the US presidential election imminent, conference participants had no illusions that either corporate party stands for peace. The initiative to cast ballots in the Democratic primary for “uncommitted” (to signify opposition to Biden’s complicity in the war on Gaza and to demand a ceasefire) received considerable support. Spontaneous chants of “shame” erupted throughout the conference whenever the Democrats’ conduct was raised.

K.J. Noh of Pivot for Peace warned about US preparations for war against China. Michael Wong of Veterans for Peace described the world struggle as not one of democracy versus authoritarianism but of national liberation versus imperialism.

Ambassadors Lautaro Sandino from Nicaragua, whose government is taking Germany to the World Court for facilitating Israel’s genocide, and Dr. Sidi M. Omar of the Polisario Front of Western Sahara addressed the conference. International solidarity was affirmed in workshops on Zones of Peace in Our Americas, opposition of coercive economic measures, and NO to NATO.

Combating repression against the movement was highlighted by Efia Nwangaza’s presentation on the campaign to “Stop Kop Cities” and Dr. Aisha Fields’ on resisting the attacks on the African People’s Socialist Party. Mel Underbakke addressed FBI frame ups of Muslims, and FBI whistleblower Colleen Rowley briefed the conference on the mobilization for Julian Assange. Lessons were also drawn by speakers from the successful defenses of the Antiwar 23 and the freeing of Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab.

Tasks ahead

Janine Solanki with the Mobilization Against War and Occupation in Vancouver spoke about the “unfolding antiwar and pro-Palestine movement that has a potential to go beyond the Vietnam antiwar movement.” She advised that what has been a mass spontaneous movement now needs to progress into a more coordinated and structured form. “We have humanity on our side…our role is to really organize these forces.”

Black Agenda Report (BAR) executive editor Margaret Kimberley concluded the conference with the mandate to stop the wars at home and abroad. The current context is a neoliberal economic regime failing to meet basic domestic needs and a global pax Americana becoming increasingly contested. In reference to the workshop on climate change, she observed, “we are in a battle for survival; that’s not hyperbole.”

In short, the conference was indicative of the larger movement that is melding youthful demographics – buoyed by the mass protests against the war on Palestine – with the mature understanding of the gravity of the tasks ahead. Kimberly closed with the guidance to “engage in principled struggle with our comrades; if you’re not struggling with someone you’re not doing enough work.”

Prospects for the anti-imperialist movement

Will the Democratic Party’s formula of “Trump trumps everything” quash the antiwar initiative? Back in 2015, the late BAR editor Glen Ford presciently wrote: “The Democrats hope the Black Lives Matter movement, like the Occupy Wall Street movement, will disappear amid the hype of the coming election season.” What will happen to the 2024 antiwar protest movement when another US presidential election looms five months from now?

Resisting being absorbed into what Ford called the Democratic election blitz to bury the movement will be the People’s Conference for Palestine, May 24-26, in Detroit, which will bring together anti-imperialist groups including the Palestine Youth Movement, National Students for Justice in Palestine, Al-Awda, and Healthcare Workers for Palestine. The ANSWER Coalition, associated with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, is a leading element. ANSWER and some of these other groups had also been instrumental in building major pro-Palestine demonstrations in Washington DC, the biggest ever in the US.

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), the largest progressive Jewish anti-Zionist organization in the world, is among the faith-based groups that have carved out a new and implicitly anti-imperialist identity for their followers. Surely JVP, along with other Jewish activist organizations, like IfNotNow and International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, will continue to militantly protest US support for Israel’s apartheid system in unity with Palestinian and other activist groups.

Come this summer, CodePink, Bayan, and others will be confronting the largest joint war exercises in the world with Cancel RIMPAC. Protests are also scheduled for NATO’s 75th anniversary summit, July 6-7, in Washington DC; the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, July 15-18; and the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, August 19-22FacebookTwitter

RedditEmail

Roger D. Harris is with the human rights group Task Force on the Americas and the US Peace Council. Read other articles by Roger D..

 

We’re Still Breathing: Amhara Genocide in Ethiopia Official Trailer

by Graham Peebles / April 17th, 2024

Award Winning Documentary Film by Graham Peebles

Ignored by western governments and largely overlooked by media a genocide is taking place in Ethiopia. The Amhara people, a large ethnic group, are being ethnically cleansed from the region of Oromia, the largest region in the country.

Tens of thousands of Amhara have been killed by Oromo fanatics (estimates range from 30,000 – 50,000); over three million have been displaced, homes, land and livestock stolen.

The Oromo Liberation Front (OLF or Shene) together with the Oromo regional militia are responsible for the carnage, with the support of the Oromo Regional Authority and the federal government.

In addition to mass murder and wholesale displacement, estimates claim that more than 300,000 Amhara have been arrested. Journalists, human rights workers, parliamentarians, academics, protestors and students, are all among those interned without trial, often in undisclosed locations. In detention, torture and execution is reportedly widespread.

Hundreds of Amhara men and boys have been herded into industrial detention centres (that some are calling concentration camps), where they are held without charge and injected with contagious diseases.

At the request of an Ethiopian human rights group (Amhara Association of America) I travelled to Ethiopia in June 2023 to make a short documentary. We spent time in Internal Displacement Camps and met some of the people affected. Their stories were deeply distressing: children murdered in front of their parents; young men slaughtered en masse; pregnant women attacked, their bellies stabbed, the baby killed. Whole communities eradicated.

The purpose of the film is to raise awareness of this appalling issue, and to add our voice to those calling on western governments (the US, EU and UK in particular), to apply pressure on the Ethiopian Government, led by Prime-Minister Abiy Ahmed.

Screenings of the award winning documentary (Best Documentary at the Global Film Awards and Best Human Rights Film at the World Film Festival in Cannes) have taken place in Washington DC, Dallas, Toronto, Canada. More screenings are planned in April/May/June in the US.TwitterRedditEmail

Graham Peebles is an independent writer and charity worker. He set up The Create Trust in 2005 and has run education projects in India, Sri Lanka, Palestine and Ethiopia where he lived for two years working with street children, under 18 commercial sex workers, and conducting teacher training programmes. He lives and works in London. Read other articles by Graham, or visit Graham's website.

 

America’s Now Evident Plan to Use AUKUS to Spark War With China

The U.S. regime’s aggressive intent against China is now undeniable

by Eric Zuesse / April 17th, 2024

There was much concern, in international circles, about the the U.S. Government’s recent efforts to open a NATO office in Tokyo so as to extend its military alliance against Russia to become also a military alliance against China. When that initiative scared some other NATO members, it was stopped, and the fear temporarily subsided. But then suddenly, on April 8, it was announced that (despite some hurdles that would first need to be overcome) America’s new (2021) anti-China military alliance, AUKUS, is “considering” (meaning here intending) to, in effect, bring into that alliance Japan (which has 79 U.S. military bases). On April 10, U.S. President Joe Biden and Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met at the White House to plan how this would be done. The next day, Defense News bannered “AUKUS allies float path for Japan to join tech sharing pact”. So, the U.S., which has 900 foreign military bases and actually spends around half of the entire planet’s military expenses, and therefore has no actual need for any military ‘allies’, but instead brings them in to serve as proxies for itself and to be able to say (for propaganda-purposes) “we” when referring to itself, so as to ‘justify’ its numerous invasions and to prevent any of its ‘allied’ (or colonial) countries from criticizing it, is now effectively displaying the reality to anyone who worries about such matters. This reality is: Yes, the U.S. Government is demanding to, and will, control China, too. The U.S. already has military bases against China in Australia, Guam, Japan, South Korea, Marshall Islands, Mariana Islands, Palau, Philippines, Samoa, Singapore, and Thailand; so, it can invade China almost instantly from plenty of bases to China’s south and east.

Even some Australians (though hardly yet any Brits to my knowledge) are raising alarms at this accession of Japan into AUKUS. For example, the Australian commentator John Menadue, a former Cabinet Minister, published at his blog on April 16th, “Lest We Forget: Japan joining AUKUS a stark reminder of China’s Century of Humiliation”, by  Robert Macklin, which opened:

With the addition of Japan, AUKUS ceases to be a device to supply nuclear powered submarines to Australia several decades in the future but a stark reminder of the oppressive powers that abused Chinese sovereignty in the 19th and 20th centuries.

It was Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles who first suggested that the inclusion of Japan in the AUKUS group was a natural ‘evolution’ of the pact. As such it was risible, if understandable; Marles is not the sharpest knife in the Cabinet drawer.

But when it was adopted by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese – and then the American president Joe Biden – there is cause for concern. With the addition of Japan, AUKUS ceases to be a device to supply nuclear powered submarines to Australia several decades in the future but a stark reminder of the oppressive powers that abused Chinese sovereignty in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Japan’s membership could hardly be more provocative to a country that suffered the indignity of Japanese control of its Taiwan province for 50 years from 1895 and its invasion of the mainland throughout the second world war.

The notorious Massacre of Nanking – where the atrocities included 200,000 murders and 20,000 rapes of the civilian population – was but one of hundreds of outrages visited upon the Chinese people. …

When he referred there to America’s having created AUKUS as “a device to supply nuclear powered submarines to Australia several decades in the future,” he was referring to the shady excuses that it gave at the time for creating AUKUS, and which entailed an open affront to France — including coercion forcing France to cancel a lucrative contract France had with Australia’s Government, which affront France promised to (but never did) retaliate against the U.S. for. But, now, this bringing of the first non-Anglo member into America’s (initially pure-Anglo) military alliance against China, proves that its real target, and the real aim of AUKUS, is to conquer China — nothing less than that (just as NATO demands to win its war against Russia in the battlefield of Ukraine on Russia’s border).

On April 15, Lin Congyi, of China’s Defense Ministry, headlined “AUKUS makes more mistakes by roping in Japan”, and he commented:

Recently, the US, the UK, and Australia announced that Japan would join AUKUS, causing great concern among the international community. This is the first time that the three countries have announced a partner since the organization was established in September 2021. Japanese officials responded by saying that Japan “recognizes” the importance of AUKUS. Many Japanese citizens criticized AUKUS for promoting membership expansion regardless of concerns from all walks of life, which will intensify camp confrontation and the risks of nuclear proliferation, and undermine peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.

AUKUS is short for the Trilateral Security Partnership between Australia, the UK and the US, which has two main pillars. Pillar I focuses on the deployment of nuclear submarines in Australia and the joint research, development and construction of the next-generation nuclear submarines by the three countries. Cooperation in this area is “limited to the US, UK and Australia”. Pillar II focuses on the joint development and deployment of new technologies to enhance advanced combat capabilities.

Why did they choose Japan in the first place? Analysts believe that there are two reasons. From a technical perspective, the US, the UK and Australia have their respective shortcomings in the field of high technology, while Japan, with advantages in the fields of hypersonic weapons, quantum technology, electronic warfare and artificial intelligence, can play a greater role in defense technology. On the part of Japan, it hopes to improve its defense capabilities and increase its military influence in the Asia-Pacific region by sharing sensitive military technologies with the US, the UK, Australia, and other countries.

Strategically, these countries also have their own calculations. The US sees AUKUS as a key part of the implementation of the so-called “Indo-Pacific Strategy” and wants to attract more allies to join in order to achieve the goal of containing China. The UK is pushing ahead with the “Global Britain” strategy, and its security cooperation with Japan is becoming deeper. It hopes, in a bid to become more involved in Asia-Pacific affairs with the aid of Japan and expand its influence in the Asia-Pacific region.

Australia, on the other hand, put high expectations on Pillar II due to the sluggish progress of Pillar I and thus supported the inclusion of Japan. As for Japan, it wants to use AUKUS as a new tool to carry out its military agenda in the Asia-Pacific region and contain China. …

The U.S. Government, and its UK partner, are going for broke, in order to win an all-inclusive U.S.-UK empire — a U.S./UK global dictatorship that includes all of the world’s nations as its colonies (INCLUDING Russia and China). The idea here is nothing less than to terminate national sovereignty and replace it with an international global dictatorship by the U.S./UK partnership: all sovereignty being based in Washington and London, no longer under the internal control of any other individual nation. This is the contemporary U.S./UK vision for their Brave New World. Never has that vision been more clear than it now is: indisputable. (The links here document it.) If this effort to bring Japan into AUKUS succeeds, it will be a virtual declaration of war against China.

As regards China’s alleged imperial ambitions, an April 16 article in Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post headlined “China was never an imperialist state” and pointed out that “it could be highly problematic to map directly the Western experience of empire, such as when we talk about the Spanish, Portuguese, British, or even the American empires” because “The Chinese empire, through different dynasties, often functioned more like the opposite of an empire, and the oft-cited tribute system frequently worked in reverse,” meaning that what some Westerners have alleged to be or to have been ‘imperialism’ by China was actually dynastic feuds within China. China’s invasions were internal — as contrasted to the Western experience, which explored, exploited, and invaded, far away from the homeland, in order to conquer, control, and extract from, a distant culture. What America is now trying to do to China (make it become yet another U.S. colony), has no parallel to anything that China has ever done. It is pure foreign aggression — which since 1945 has been the U.S. specialtyEmail

Eric Zuesse is an investigative historian. His new book, America's Empire of Evil: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public. Read other articles by Eric.

 

Faulty Assurances: The Judicial Torture of Assange Continues

by Binoy Kampmark / April 17th, 2024

Only this month, the near comatose US President, Joe Biden, made a casual, castaway remark that his administration was “considering” the request by Australia that the case against Julian Assange be concluded.  The WikiLeaks founder has already spent five gruelling years in London’s Belmarsh prison, where he continues a remarkable, if draining campaign against the US extradition request on 18 charges, 17 incongruously and outrageously based on the US Espionage Act of 1917.

Like readings of coffee grinds, his defenders took the remark as a sign of progress.  Jennifer Robinson, a longtime member of Assange’s legal team, told Sky News Australia that Biden’s “response, this is what we have been asking for over five years.  Since 2010 we’ve been saying this is a dangerous precedent that’s being set.  So, we certainly hope it was a serious remark and the US will act on it.” WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson found the mumbled comment from the president “extraordinary”,  hoping “to see in the coming days” whether “clarification of what this means” would be offered by the powerful.

On April 14, the Wall Street Journal reported that Canberra had asked their US counterparts whether a felony plea deal could be reached, enabling the publisher to return to Australia.  “Prosecutors and a lawyer for Assange have discussed a range of potential deals, including those that include pleading guilty to a felony under the espionage law under which he was indicted, and those of conspiring to mishandle classified information, which would be a misdemeanor, people familiar with the matter have said.”

Last month, the UK High Court gave what can only be regarded as an absurd prescription to the prosecution should they wish to succeed.  Extradition would be unlikely to be refused if Assange was availed of protections offered by the First Amendment (though rejecting claims that he was a legitimate journalist), was guaranteed not to be prejudiced, both during the trial and in sentence on account of his nationality, and not be subject to the death penalty.  That such directions were even countenanced shows the somewhat delusionary nature of British justices towards their US counterparts.

On April 16, Assange’s supporters received confirmation that the extradition battle, far from ending, would continue in its tormenting grind.  Not wishing to see the prospect of a full hearing of Assange’s already hobbled arguments, the US State Department, almost to the hour, filed the assurances in a diplomatic note to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).  “Assange,” the US Embassy in London claimed with aping fidelity to the formula proposed by the High Court, “will not be prejudiced by reason of nationality with respect to which defenses he may seek to raise at trial and at sentencing.”

Were he to be extradited, “Assange will have the ability to raise and seek to rely upon at trial (which includes any sentencing hearing) the rights and protections given under the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.”  An obvious caveat, and one that should be observed with wary consideration by the High Court judges, followed.  “A decision as to the applicability of the First Amendment is exclusively within the purview of the US Courts.”

The US embassy also promised that, “A sentence of death will neither be sought nor imposed on Assange.  The United States is able to provide such assurance as Assange is not charged with a death-penalty eligible offense, and the United States assures that he will not be tried for a death-eligible offense.”  This undertaking does not dispel the threat of Assange being charged with additional offences such as traditional espionage, let alone aiding or abetting treason, which would carry the death penalty.

In 2020, Gordon Kromberg, the chief Department of Justice prosecutor behind the case, told the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales that the US “could argue that foreign nationals are not entitled to protections under the First Amendment, at least as it concerns national defense information.”  There was also the likelihood that Assange, in allegedly revealing the names of US intelligence sources thereby putting them at risk of harm, would also preclude the possibility of him relying on such protections.

That the zealous Kromberg will be fronting matters should Assange reach US shores is more than troubling.  Lawyers and civil rights activists have accused him of using the Eastern District Court of Virginia for selective and malicious prosecutions.  As Murtaza Hussain of The Intercept observed with bleak accuracy in July 2021, “[r]ather than being pushed into obscurity by these efforts, today he is serving as a key figure in one of the most important civil liberties cases in the world.”

The High Court also acknowledged Kromberg’s views at trial regarding the possibility that the First Amendment did not cover foreign nationals.  “It can fairly be assumed that [Kromberg] would not have said that the prosecution ‘could argue that foreign nationals are not entitled to protections under the First Amendment’ unless that was a tenable argument that the prosecution was entitled to deploy with real prospect of success.”  These latest assurances do nothing to change that fact.

A post from Assange’s wife, Stella, provided a neat and damning summary of the embassy note.  “The United States has issued a non-assurance in relation to the First Amendment, and a standard assurance in relation to the death penalty. It makes no undertaking to withdraw the prosecution’s previous assertion that Julian has no First Amendment rights because he is not a US citizen.  Instead, the US has limited itself to blatant weasel words claiming that Julian can ‘seek to raise’ the First Amendment if extradited.”

Whether the justices are duly satisfied by the latest diplomatic manoeuvre, one non-binding in any tangible or true sense on prosecutors and judges in the US, awaits testing in the hearing on May 20.  For Assange, the wheels of judicial torture have been prolonged.

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.

The Farce of Diplomatic Assurances

By Craig Murray

April 18, 2024

Source: Craigmurray.org.uk

On Sunday 14 April 2024, supporters of imprisoned dissident Julian Assange gathered outside Belmarsh high security prison in south east London, sometimes referred to as " "Britain's Guantanamo Bay."

The United States has now, on the face of it, produced the Diplomatic Note giving the two assurances required by the High Court to allow the extradition of Julian Assange to proceed. The assurance that Julian Assange will be allowed to rely on the First Amendment in his defence is a blatantly weak piece of sophistry.

You can read my analysis on the High Court judgment of Assange’s right to an appeal here.

Let me dispense with the assurance against the death penalty. I am sure it will be accepted by the court. The USA does not need to execute Julian, it can incarcerate him in a tiny concrete tomb for life, under extreme sensory deprivation, as a terrible half living warning to any journalist who might reveal their crimes.

Should that ever become inconvenient, he can be Epsteined or Seth Riched at any moment. Remember this is a government that plotted to kidnap and/or assassinate him, as pled and not denied in court.

The assurance required on First Amendment protection is being misunderstood by almost everybody reporting it, and the US Diplomatic Note seeks to take advantage of the confusion.

The High Court took the view that the First Amendment provides the same protections as Article X of the European Convention on Human Rights, and therefore Assange’s Convention rights will be protected if he is allowed to plead the First Amendment as a defence before a US court. The court did not ask for an assurance that such a plea would succeed. Article X of the ECHR is itself absolutely shot through with authoritarian national security and other exceptions.

The assurance on which the High Court did insist was that such a plea could not be struck down on the grounds of Assange’s nationality. That would contradict the separate ECHR provision against discrimination by nationality. The US Diplomatic Note has failed genuinely to address this point: but it pretends to do so.

The US prosecutor in an affidavit to the UK court had already stated that Assange may be barred from First Amendment protection because he was a foreign national who had acted abroad. Mike Pompeo had also stated this officially. The principle is plainly articulated by the Supreme Court in the case of USAID vs Open Society:

THE CRUCIAL “SEEK TO”

The United States was therefore simply unable to state that Julian Assange will be able to make a First Amendment defence, because the judge, following the Supreme Court precedent, is almost certainly going to disallow it on grounds of nationality.

The Diplomatic Note therefore states that Assange may seek to raise a First Amendment defence without prohibition on grounds of nationality. This means precisely that his lawyers are permitted to say:

“My client wishes to claim the protection of the First Amendment for freedom of speech”

This is “seeking to raise” it.

The judge will immediately reply:

“The First Amendment does not apply to your client as a foreign national acting abroad, as established by the US Supreme Court in USAid vs Open Society”.

That is consistent with the actual operative phrase in the US Diplomatic Note: “A decision as to the applicability of the First Amendment is entirely within the purview of the US Courts”.

On 20 May there will be a hearing to determine whether this non-assurance is adequate to protect Julian Assange from discrimination on grounds of nationality and permit the extradition to proceed.

Now being a reasonable person, you doubtless are thinking that it is impossible that such a flimsy confection of legal sleight of hand could ever be accepted. But if so, dear reader, you have no idea of the corruption of the stool pigeons disguised as British judges.

Who would think that they could have ruled that the UK/US Treaty has legal force to extradite Julian Assange, but that Article IV of the Treaty excluding political offence strangely does not have legal force?
Who would have thought that they could have ruled that the US government spying on his attorney/client legal conferences and seizing his legal papers did not invalidate the proceedings?
Who would have thought they could have ruled that the US government plot to kidnap or murder him is irrelevant, because if he is extradited the US government will have no further need to kidnap or murder him?

I could go on. I shall be very surprised if the High Court judges following the 20 May hearing do not rule that the right to ask not to be discriminated against on grounds of nationality (and be denied) is sufficient protection against discrimination by nationality.

They really are that shameless.

 

Ambulances or Tanks?

by Visualizing Palestine / April 15th, 2024

Facebook

TwitterRedditEmail

Visualizing Palestine is the intersection of communication, social sciences, technology, design and urban studies for social justice. Visualizing Palestine uses creative visuals to describe a factual rights-based narrative of Palestine/Israel. Read other articles by Visualizing Palestine, or visit Visualizing Palestine's website.