Fair, sadly this is the best coverage we can get on one of the most important trials in recent history in regards to press freedom. The fact that there is neither wide spread protest/voicing of support in the media, or at least coverage is depressing beyond belief.
This isn't a trial, it's an extradition hearing. It's not newsworthy primarily because nothing particularly surprising or interesting has happened or is likely to happen. We know what Assange is charged with and, to some extent, the nature of the evidence against him. All that remains is to wait for the decision. The trial, if there is one, is likely to get more coverage.
I guess the International Bar Association calling the hearing a "serious undermining of due process and the rule of law" and having Amnesty International denied access to monitor it isn't all that surprising or newsworthy.
Indeed it isn't, as there is a long history of such absurd hystronics in commentary on the Assange case. The thing about "monitoring" is particularly stupid. It's a public hearing and any organization can "monitor" it all they like. What AI can't do is appoint itself to a position above the British justice system.
I agree with you that a lot of the commmentary around Assange is stupid, but I wanted to point out that...
> It's a public hearing and any organization can "monitor" it all they like.
...because of covid the normally public courts are allowing far fewer people in to view the hearings, and the online substitute is difficult to access. As I understand it AI applied to be allowed to view the court session remotely, and were denied permission, and the reasons for that denial are unclear.
The Transparency Project talks about difficulties reporters and bloggers face accessing the English family courts, and some of these are similar problems.
That's a fair point, but I'd say two things in response. First, what you're saying just goes to show that any issues there have been are unlikely to be the result of anti-Assange conspiracies. Second, journalists from a variety of news sources - some of them sympathetic to Assange - have been able to view the hearing. It's not as if some major shenanigans could be pulled without anyone knowing. Nor do I think that the British justice system is so corrupt that it needs to be "monitored", like elections in a banana republic.
Before people engage with this gent I would point them to his recent conversations here. Many people, at length, have tried to engage and explain to him the import of these proceedings in good faith.
He was provided reputable links many times, which he deemed "conspiracy theories", refusing to engage in the facts within.
A significant portion of his recent history, in fact, is people begging him to read the facts; his replies come in the form "you Assange conspiracists ..."
I don't want to break HN rules on calling people out, but the above are straight facts that people really ought to be aware of before trying with this guy again.
It astounds me that people are putting Chomsky, Hersh, Pilger, Ellsberg, etc, who have all made dire warnings about this extraordinary case, in the box of "Assange conspiracists" - and getting away with it.
You're mischaracterizing my recent post history and attacking me personally rather than what I'm saying. I'm not a mod, but yes, I'd say that is against the guidelines.
I've given the users attacking you a thorough scolding for breaking the site guidelines, but you've also been breaking the site guidelines by using this site for flamewar, by posting excessively on this issue and dropping swipes like "you Assange conspiracists" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24408007). It's not surprising that you provoked this sort of reaction from others on the opposite side of the issue from you. That's not cool, and if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to using this site as intended, we'd appreciate it.
To use HN as intended means primarily posting thoughtful, substantive comments on topics of intellectual curiosity. Internet polemics are tedious and nasty, and that gets truer as the topic gets hotter and more sensational. Assange threads, for example, already years ago became repetitive to the point of utter pointlessness. Nobody's convincing anybody—people are just beating each other with the same talking points over and over. If that's the game you want to play on the internet, please do it somewhere else.
There's some justice in what you say, and I'll do as you request. But you engage in victim blaming when you suggest that anything I've posted could reasonably have generated the 'reaction' of being accused of being a paid shill of some kind. Especially when, as you point out, this allegation is obviously false. A swipe, ill-judged as it may be, is not in the same league as a near-libellous and utterly false accusation. In this case, the person who 'reacted' isn't even the person at whom the swipe was directed, but someone who decided to trawl through my post history to dig up dirt (as they saw it).
Absolutely. The way the same comments are rapid-fire added to these threads every time is deeply suspicious and a great cause for concern.
This should be one of the top comments, it’s not reasonable to disagree with this worry given the commenter behavior on this thread and all the previous iterations.
Same offer to you. Call me and lets talk about it, if you really think I am an agent of some kind. I find it worrying that trust is breaking down to this extent. Even if we disagree strongly, perhaps I can at least persuade you that my opinions are my own.
"Astroturfing is the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organization (e.g., political, advertising, religious or public relations) to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by grassroots participants."
Are you saying that I'm an agent of some larger organization and not revealing this? If not, what exactly do you mean by 'astroturfing'?
And why will you not take me up on my offer to talk about this? Does it not concern you that you may be making a false accusation?
It's cowardly and rude to make these kind of accusations without even giving the accused person any kind of opportunity to present you with evidence to the contrary.
As I just said, I do not believe you are an agent, but I do believe your comments are astroturfing. I do not care about the Wikipedia article, I’m not sure why you’re linking it.
It seems like a rhetorical deflection to try to make the discussion about semantics of the word “astroturfing” - which I do not agree to participate in.
Your communication habits throughout the thread cause me to believe it would be fruitless and possibly dangerous to actually talk to you outside of these comments.
I’m not writing any of this to engage with you or convince you, just hopefully as a thought provoking warning for other readers who come across the thread.
What do you mean by astroturfing, then? At this point I don't even know what I'm being accused of. I linked to the Wikipedia article because according to the usual use of the term 'astroturfing', it doesn't really make sense to accuse someone of astroturfing and yet deny that they are working as an agent of an organization of some kind.
Again, we could easily resolve all this with a phone call, if you were actually interested in the truth of the matter. But I guess you'd rather hide behind your online persona and cast false accusations around.
All you need to do is look at the public 11-year history of the account you're complaining about to get an idea of how ridiculous this is. The bar for serious comments here is incredibly low—but it needs to be higher than that. I'm sure you can do much better if you want to, and if you don't want to, please find another forum that's better aligned with what you do want.
All of this holds even if foldr is completely wrong. I'm not making any claim about their views—I don't even know what their views are, nor care. The moderation issue here is that on this site, people can't issue the garden-variety internet insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, spying, etc., that the internet loves to generate ad nauseum. As the guidelines say, if you have evidence you should send it to hn@ycombinator.com so we can investigate. In this case you could simply have done the "investigation" yourself.
There's reams of previous explanation at https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme..., for anyone who wants to understand why we have this rule. The short version: because insinuations of astroturfing are poison to community, and because they nearly always collapse under inspection, usually trivially, as in this case.
I very sincerely and respectfully disagree. foldr’s comments here are very out of line. They are seeded comments copy/pasting the same smearing of Craig Murray’s alleged bias on every post about the Assange hearing.
It’s unconscionable to me that you would think the guidelines rule out my comment but wouldn’t find deep, inarguable cause for more concern over foldr’s comments.
I cannot see any way the account age or comment history bears relevance. Being a commonly-seen community member for years, then suddenly deciding to spam smear comments about Craig Murray’s alleged bias on posts about the Assange hearing still is quite flagrant.
Brief factual note: none of my recent comments mentions Craig Murray or says that he has a bias. Some other posters did this. I've been posting about Assange for many years, but this will be my last word on him as I am no longer allowed to go there.
I wish you'd just talk to me if you really think there is something sinister behind my posts, as you seem like a sincere person. It's actually quite hurtful to be accused of such things, regardless of how annoying or wrong I might be. Contact details temporarily on my profile.
I was wondering how long it would be before someone would accuse me of being a disinformation agent.
You seem to have a real HN account. I tell you what, why don't you phone me and we can talk about this like adults? I'm actually fascinated to talk to someone who thinks that I'm not just some random guy on the internet posting my opinion.
And if we're still on the subject of the guidelines, making baseless accusations of this nature is certainly in violation of them.
To downvoters: if you're really concerned about shills or astroturfing, why don't you take me up on my offer? I mean, what are you actually objecting to here? Is it not ok for me to refute allegations that I'm a shill?
You can't attack another user like this on HN, regardless of how wrong they are or how strongly you disagree with their views. It's pure poison to community, we ban accounts that do this, and the site guidelines make it clear that it's not ok. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and don't do this again.
Scepticism is healthy, particularly when dealing with statements so vehemently asserted by the state. Do you have some examples of Murray's reporting on the Assange case being untrustworthy?
The line between Sceptic and useful idiot is subtle sometimes.
I read some of Murray's doubts - some of them hold weight (as in they are noteworthy), sure, and it's almost certain that SIS cleaned up the story (They aren't the police - the only material that gets published is published because it's useful) but Murray has _zero_ insider knowledge here. If you are questioning that it was a poisoning at all you better have something to stand on.
He has consistently been pointing in the opposite direction to the western line for years, and never correct in any case I can see. He claimed he had spoken to the "person" who leaked the DNC emails - if he actually thinks that he is either unbelievably naive or acting in bad faith.
"The US and Saudi Arabia have every reason to instigate a split between Germany and Russia at this time. Navalny is certainly a victim of international politics. That he is a victim of Putin I tend to doubt." Make your own mind up.
edit: -2 but no counterargument, wheres the fun in that
Navalny had a LOT of enemies in Russia, not just putin. It's hardly an outrageous conspiracy theory to suggest that somebody more LDPR-aligned than Putin-aligned poisoned him, especially since they're the ones who made Litvinenko's killer an MP.
It's interesting the ways in which our own domestic propaganda can inform our worldviews.
You're skeptical that a far right Russian political network might have strong military connections who would have access?
I would also be skeptical of this idea if I truly believed that Putin had the extreme iron grip over military/FSB that he tries to portray. I believe it's quite a bit more chaotic there than he'd want you to believe though. I'm sure their opsec is not as good as it is in the US. After the SU fell they even auctioned off arms.
As to why not a gun - 1) it's quiet and surreptitious. 2) I reckon it might also be a message TO putin 3) I'm pretty sure they would want putin to be seen as responsible for the murder.
I would be sceptical that it was done "by" Putin if I believed that he was in control?
Novichok is rare ("[there is not] a single case of such poison being sold illegally" according to the director of the Russian plant that manufactured it [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novichok_agent#cite_note-FP453...]), and has only been observed in the wild in the hands of organizations like the GRU (at least in the west). Poisoning Navalny certainly should've required top level approval from someone, if not Putin then it's highly embarrassing - whose head is rolling?
I'm pretty sure that the origin of the novichok is the Soviet or Russian military.
HOWEVER
As I said, after the fall of the Soviet Union there was a free for all on Russian arms. It was chaos. This was even documented in the Nicholas Cage movie God of war.
I think it's fairly plausible that novichok was taken by Soviet military officers during that free for all and kept at home. Novichok is supposed to be stable for up to 50 years.
Skripal was interesting coz he blew the covers of about 100 GRU agents and was part of a spy swap. There is cover in having 100 people with motives.
Putin just after the poisoning was demanding (somewhat desperately I thought) that the UK send him evidence. I thought that was telling. It suggested he was just as keen to get to the bottom of it.
The British Inquiry (page ~245) concluded that it was likely the hit on Litvinenko was ordered close to the top. Putin was a KGB officer - he now doesn't take an interest anymore?
And if he blew the covers of 100 officers, they would've been under deep cover i.e. not going around assassinating people and going home on the plane.
In the case of Navalny, Putin's main opponent gets hit - if Putin didn't order it, it damages his credibility, I repeat: Whose head is rolling?
I didn't mention it earlier, but Russia no longer has a death penalty officially - this is why Skripal was alive to be swapped. Oleg Gordievsky was sentenced to death in absentia and I believe the order still stands (although hopefully unenforceable)
I find it more plausible that the litvinenko hit was ordered by Putin than Navalny or skripal. Nonetheless it was LDPR not United Russia that gave him immunity. I wouldn't rule it out.
>And if he blew the covers of 100 officers, they would've been under deep cover
I hope it's not too controversial to say that they clearly weren't very competent and probably thought they were doing things properly.
>In the case of Navalny, Putin's main opponent gets hit - if Putin didn't order it, it damages his credibility, I repeat: Whose head is rolling?
Assuming Putin doesn't know, If I were him I would be furiously investigating but in wouldn't be keen to share with the world whose head rolled. Especially if it's FSB. If a US CIA agent went rogue do you think they'd tell us all about it? C'mon.
With skripal using him as part of a spy swap and then killing him ruins Putin's to negotiate. I don't think FSB agents who got their covers blown will give a fuck about that because they will desperately want revenge but Putin will.
> If a US CIA agent went rogue do you think they'd tell us all about it? C'mon.
Yes? "CIA agent goes rogue and kills Ronald McDonald" is bad PR for the US and the CIA in particular, of course they would emphasize that the agent was not acting under their orders. Organizations like Bellingcat (Who Murray calls warmongering propagandists by the way) make it increasingly difficult to get away with secrecy, people will find out so you have to separate yourself from the controversy.
I'm quite sure the CIA's first choice would be to deny any association and convince the media to downplay it, which they certainly have the leverage to do, especially in this age of fast news.
And exposing one CIA agent exposes others. Basic opsec.
Bellingcat looks suspiciously like it was "adopted" as a public front for CIA to release intelligence they want out there publicly using parallel construction.
Not necessarily a "bad" thing but I've yet to see them release something the CIA wouldn't either be either happy or ecstatic to see in the public domain ("Russia shot down an airliner you say???").
Idk do you know of any examples of them using "open source data" to expose an undercover CIA agent for instance? Expose a an American war crime like wikileaks did with collateral murder? I can't and I'd be shocked if they actually did in the future.
Scepticism in this case is closer to "My mind is suspiciously open and my brain has fallen out onto the table in front of me", he questioned that they were poisoned at all let alone by the Russians.
Murray also said that he was approached with DNC emails, which means that unless he was lying someone has sounded him out as a source (and we know where they came from)
To err is human, to repeatedly try to discredit the only source we get from this trample on 'freedom of speech' is.. fishy. Classic smear tactics, so passive, so cool. Hats off to you gents, fiction isn't this sweet.
I'd love to have other sources to read. Unfortunately it seems like there aren't any, because nobody is being allowed to sit in the gallery on this pretty important case. Huge red flag right there.
As would I, why there isn't a rolling coverage section in the Guardian is beyond me? Obviously the case doesnt make them look good, but it's incredibly important.
The Salisbury poisoning was bizarre. The Russians had arrested Sergei, then spy-swapped him in 2010.
So the Russians have to have figured out a reason, after a decade, that suddenly this man had to die in a grizzly and obvious assassination. Despite the fact they already had him under arrest and decided he wasn't all that important to them. It is very hard to imagine what that reason would be. And on the converse, anglosphere intelligence services have a history of lying.
It is reasonable to question the Salisbury poisoning. It is hard to see what was in it for Russia. There wasn't an outcome here that is good for them, so it is unclear why they would have done it.
To prove that they can get anyone, anywhere? Is that really that hard to get? They aren't exactly quiet about what might happen to someone who doesn't play ball.
Skripal was swapped for 10 illegals (the illegals, from 2010). Bringing them back was a propaganda win, they sort of got away with it, and the west got Skripal back in return.
> To prove that they can get anyone, anywhere? Is that really that hard to get?
If they can get anyone, any time ... why pick someone irrelevant? Why not get someone where it is in their interests for them to die?
That is a really bad motive. All they are doing is tipping their operational methods and compromising the identity of their assassins. Plus it costs money and is risky.
Either the Russians are really stupid or there is some aspect of the story that isn't public. What that aspect is, who knows. But it is probably there.
Skripal was one of the west's crown jewels (that we know about at least), obvious target. This is about sending a message to potential future-skripals.
And the brazenness of it fits with what I have said - We can get away with this anywhere, you are not safe.
Spies have been killing people for millenia, and the KGB (now FSB) and GRU are particularly good at it. John Barron's book on the KGB from the 70s literally had a list of a few hundred known KGB officers at the back before the index, they all know each other to at least some degree (They'll suss you out the moment you are deployed to a foreign embassy).
> What that aspect is, who knows. But it is probably there.
Like what? Maybe they poisoned themselves with Novichok for a laugh, but it's unlikely. Remember that a lot of Russian money passes through the British ruling party and London so it's not really in their interest to ratfuck
I think the point is very much to send a message to current serving Russian intelligence officers to think very carefully before betraying their country.
This is apparently hard to grasp for some (HN is the only site on the internet I frequent where the Russian security services of all people seem to be given the benefit of the doubt)
I think it’s because US / UK security services are just as ruthless and bloody, they just cover it up better. I doubt anyone here disputes the extreme moral failure of Russian state security. It’s just that we should be much more skeptical of countries that are just as bloody and flippant in their lack of concern for human life or decency, like US & UK.
Yes, but that's a different kind of operation (they're run by the military).
The correct answer to my question is (if you go 40 rather than 20 years) that the bodies are very much buried in Northern Ireland (although the FRU was part of the British Army)
The CIA storing brown people in black sites is heinous but there is a certain logic to the operation, as opposed to bumping off defectors which is purely "political". Drone strikes are an ugly solution to an awful situation (this administration is pushing the boundary's of "solution" but still - Trump bombs more than Obama & Bush combined IIRC + Soulemani )
The Russians have always been much better at espionage than the west, that's why they're bolder with these public hits.
I think drone strikes were a stupid solution the first time they killed a bunch of people who just happened to stand next to the intended target. Then they went downhill from there. (Edit: for instance going after someone based on very questionable intel.)
Also I think espionage is (and I think I agree, the Soviets were better at infiltration probably) orthogonal to bold public hits. The public hits are an intimidation tactic.
The destruction of Jewish businesses on Kristallnacht 'made a lot of sense' to many Germans at the time. Are you so sure you want to use this particular point to pivot your argument?
There is NO logic to violating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, nor any of the myriad laws against extrajudicial killing, rendition and torture. It defies logic, unless the real intent is to foment the conditions ripe for yet more, endless war.
As (insert expletive here) that was, it was more of an Act of War than just an assasination. So totally different, though I think it was immoral, strategically unsound, and stupid. Also loathable and with no regard for innocent lives.
An act of war implies the existence of a war. The USA is not at war with either Iran or Irak, so not sure how this could qualify (except that, had the roles been reversed, it would have definitely been seen as an act that can START a war).
You seem to have hit on a very important point: American's don't realize that, while their country is the #1 cause of terror and war around the world, its not 'legally at war', and therefore - laws of war that traditionally the public would understand, are simply not applicable.
This is another atrocity being committed on the general public by the military industrial criminal state. Doublethink and newspeak have been very skillfully applied to ensure a lack of culpability - however, to those of us who have had to dig innocent loved ones out from under America's piles of burning rubble, it is very, very clear that the American people are responsible for this mess, whether they understand their own laws or not.
As disgusting as what the US/UK does, it leans more towards cloak and dagger, rather than "look at as, we can kill anywhere and no-one will give a fuck about your, or if they do, they won't dare do anything to help you".
Edit: yes, I guess the US has similar optics in countries it operates killing drones as Russia has in Europe. Except probably worse.
“I believe the perception caused by civilian casualties is one of the most dangerous enemies we face.” U.S. General Stanley A. McCrystal in his inaugural speech as ISAF Commander in June 2009.
It is hard to grasp because it is a stupid theory. If they wanted him dead, they had him in prison and could have killed him. They thought he was more valuable free after a spy swap.
If they spy swap then poison him, next time they won't get a spy swap - nobody is going to spy swap with a country that then assassinates the swapped spy. They will have gained nothing and lost an option. They will be worse off.
It is possible that the Russians are stupid, and are happy to be worse off having made a point. Stranger things have happened. But it is also possible, and indeed quite likely, they are not stupid and there is something else going on.
This is silly. Things change in 10 years. More to the point there is a mountain of evidence that the Russians did it, including two very obvious suspects who gave a far-from-credible denial on TV.
I don’t know why you would be surprised that you cannot randomly call people up to testify during the proceedings. You have to submit your witness lists months before a hearing.
If you are talking about Goetz, he actually was a witness and testifying that morning. The point is that he was forbidden by the judge to testify about a specific event, in favor of Assange, but that's all in the article.
Exactly. The point is that the prosecutor has repeatedly brought up a specific event that Goetz witnessed. But when Goetz comes to testify, Goetz is not allowed to discuss that very same event.
The prosecutor is allowed to repeatedly quote Luke Harding's account of what Assange supposedly said, but Goetz isn't allowed to give his opinion - which is apparently very different from that of Harding. Harding's personal hatred of Assange is well known, and he published this false (and as-of-yet un-retracted) story [1] about Assange supposedly meeting with Manafort in the Ecuadorian embassy, so it's entirely plausible that Goetz' "memory" of what Assange said is more accurate than Harding's.
It's been pretty clear throughout this story that the judge is very unfavorable towards Assange. They're just going through the formalities, but we can all guess what the outcome will be - unless there's enough political pressure on the UK government to stop the extradition.
Murray sows mistrust and conspiracy like thinking towards everything he sees as the man he is fighting against. He has uncritically trusted Kremlin sources because they have common enemy.
For example Kremlin dismissed photos of Salisbury suspects as fake news, and Murray jumped right into it without critical thinking or distrust against Kremlin as source. NATO chemical weapons exercise taking place on Salisbury Plain seems like better explanation to him.
For these and other reasons I can't trust his reporting to be factual. We should find other sources.
He claimed to have inside information from the Foreign Office, that the government was negotiating an agreement with the EU with the intention of breaking it later. I don't think anyone else reported this at the time.
A little under a year later, it seems that what he reported was true.
A little under a year later, it seems that what he reported was true.
No it doesn't; it merely seems that the outcome of the conspiracy he fabricated last year is similar to the possible outcome of something that might happen in the future. Broken clocks etc.
Murray often claims to be reporting something he was told by an insider at the Foreign Office.
I'm not sure whether in general to believe him.
In this case I'm convinced, from what we know now, that he was telling the truth: that the government was planning, at the time the backstop was negotiated, for how to break it, and that this was unusual enough for Foreign Office legal advisers to be distinctly unhappy about it.
I don't think this demonstrates that every time he claims he's reporting insider information he's telling the truth. But it does weigh in the direction of treating him as a truth-teller.
It's the nearest thing we can get in this sort of situation to gaining confidence by verifying a theory's prediction experimentally.
I'm not seeing it, at least just from that. Can you point out the connection between exactly what Murray writes and the "limited and specific way" debacle?
Boris Johnson to skirt around law and violate treaty isn't exactly out of character.
Note the article says which bit of the treaty it's talking about (the Northern Ireland protocol).
If he'd written "I've heard from legal advisers that they've been asked to provide a justification for breaking part of a treaty but they don't want me to say which", I wouldn't put much weight on that turning out to be true.
I think it's really important that we keep stressing this. Murray's blog is showing up here every day, despite his being an untrustworthy source of information, and a noted conspiracy theorist. He's also due in court next month on his own set of contempt charges.
It's clear from reading his analysis that he has no interest in trying to remain even slightly detached. If he wrote that the sky were blue, you'd be well advised to double-check yourself.
I sincerely hope it's for benign reasons, but HN does seem to be the only "normal" forum I read where this level of contrarian-ness wrt the Whitehouse/Whitehall line on Russia (I would say Assange too but I feel some qualified sympathy towards him). Make the argument if you want but not via Craig Murray
The older threads on Litvinenko have basically the same debates going on, same with Skripal, now with Navalny. "but how can you prove Putin [noted ex-KGB Lieutenant Colonel turned naive pacifist apparently] ordered it"
I expect dang to jump up any second and remind you that that's most likely because you don't come into contact with people from vastly different backgrounds who hold vastly different opinions on your other forums. It's actual diversity.
Skepticism, even extreme skepticism, is generally a good thing, and having some people out there that are convinced that something is not as it seems is a good thing. Even if they're wrong, they will look very closely and bring things to attention that everyone else will not look into because they subconsciously feel that it's not a good idea to poke that hornets nest if you want to keep your ideological world view in tact.
With Navalny, for example, there's been quite a bit of demands to halt or cancel North Stream 2. There are obviously very powerful interests in multiple settings that would very much like to see that happen. Obviously that doesn't mean anything for the case itself, but if you flat our reject that conspiracies and intelligence false flag operations exist (or, alternatively, believe "we're the good guys, we wouldn't do that"), you won't look into it, because why would you.
> So there's no evidence but I am to give the Russian state the benefit of the doubt?
No, but I believe you should doubt the public position of whatever country you live in, on principle. They might be right, they might be wrong, but usually they don't care about being right or wrong, they care about their agenda. I find it a good idea to keep that in mind.
> hackernews is just a different type of hive mind
Meh, a hive mind that fights itself isn't a hive mind.
> I can't trust his reporting to be factual. We should find other sources.
No major news source is covering this to the extent Craig Murray is. That in itself should be more worrying than Murray's views on other matters. His reporting on Assange has been very good. There are other sources, but I doubt they diverge much from what Murray's reporting. See for example Kevin Gosztola's reporting: https://dissenter.substack.com
"A top U.S. diplomat strongly warned German counterparts against issuing arrest warrants for CIA agents who were involved in the kidnapping of a German citizen, who was brought to Afghanistan and tortured before officials concluded that they had the wrong man."
From the diplomatic cable, published by Wikileaks, we can see that the US is actually threatening Germany while at the same time writing:
"our intention was not to threaten Germany, but rather to urge that the German Government weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the U.S."
To paraphrase James Mickens, it seems if the USA threatens your country, "they’re going to hold a press conference and say
“It wasn’t us” as they wear t-shirts that say “IT WAS DEFINITELY US.”"
After seeing the posts each day trying simply to discredit the author of the reports instead of claiming that there's any inaccuracy in what he reports, everybody should consider that maybe there are some people who would rather that nobody reads about all the topics brought up there.
And there are many very interesting topics indeed. I advise anybody taking the time and going through the previous days too. The author of the report claims that it is officially for him not allowed to post the links to the written statements of the witnesses of the defense.
Reading his reports is insightful, and I'm not aware of anybody doing more thorough reporting now.
What I find most concerning is, where are all the "normal" reporters - and I don't mean the unicorn unbiased ones, but regular, biased but not actively pushing their fringe ideas.
(I mean, it's ok to have fringe ideas. But if you are pushing them without having much to back them up with, and at the same time acting as a reporter, lets just say I wish we had more to choose from.)
Can you name any "fringe" idea in his 11 days of reports, that he claimed himself? As in, not supported by other sources, or that weren't said directly by somebody else?
I haven't noticed a single one.
For example, it's obvious that the judge actively did everything they can to limit the chance that the case gets proper coverage in the press.
You sow distrust on one hand but then you show your fealty to the war machine on the other hand.
We cannot know whether the Salisbury Plain weapons exercise is the legitimate source of the Novichok substance - because lies, deceit and 'state secrecy' are used to mask the truth.
So, you'd prefer journalists not do their job and raise questions about these issues, because they cannot possibly know the truth?
Your disinterest in Murray is irrelevant, anyway. He is the tip of the iceberg in terms of who is reporting on the travesty that is the Assange extradition trial. Fortunately, not everyone is as easily swayed by the military-industrial spook state as you are, though ..
It’s amazing how much astroturfing happens in the comments of these Assange hearing threads.
Within minutes every time, the same tired, false, laughable comments deriding Craig Murray and ignoring the written material show up.
Nobody’s buying this criticism of Craig Murray. This appears by all accounts to be an accurate reflection of what was said, and it’s presented in a way where you can clearly form your own opinions and will not be unduly influenced by any of the writing expressing Murray’s own reaction or take.
I wish the moderators would put a stop to it. Every single one of these comments should be flagged.
The discussion of journalists not understanding or respecting the need to keep material encrypted is consistent with why I feel like I'm developing a lower degree of trust for people who lack a physical or technical skill, as without one, it is hard for them to have a sense of consequences for being careless or stupid in new domains. Ultimately one of the Guardian or NYT writers published Assange's insurance archive password in a book. Whether that was mendacious or stupid doesn't matter, Assange overestimated reporters and editors in their ability to apprehend risk.
It becomes a moral issue when they don't hold themselves above that standard. They're fine for administrative tasks, but not people you want to take risks together with.
I was very struck by this when watching Citizenfour (the documentary on Snowden leaks). The newspaper journalists had little understanding of good procedures (even "don't have a very short password") and thought Snowden hiding his keystrokes from the camera (and anything else) was funny, rather than good practice. And these were the best people Snowden could find. Hopefully, among journalists, there is now more awareness of how important this really is.
As regards Harding/Leigh giving away the password in their book - I find it very hard to believe that this was an honest accident on their part. The defence that they and the Guardian newspaper gave is just not credible ~ 'oh, but we didn't realise'. And beyond that, if you were going to publish the password and somehow thought it was ok, you would at least consult someone who knew more on the topic that they claim that they did.
It's hard to remain impartial when the prosecutor's case mainly rests on WikiLeaks knowingly and wittingly publishing unredacted files, and one of the key witnesses who could refute this point is not allowed to talk about it. From the text:
>James Lewis QC for the prosecution had been permitted gratuitously to read to two previous witnesses with zero connection to this claim, an extract from a book by Luke Harding and David Leigh in which Harding claims that at a dinner at El Moro Restaurant Julian Assange had stated he did not care if US informants were killed, because they were traitors who deserved what was coming to them.
>This morning giving evidence was John Goetz, now Chief Investigations Editor of NDR (German public TV), then of Der Spiegel. Goetz was one of the four people at that dinner. He was ready and willing to testify that Julian said no such thing and Luke Harding is (not unusually) lying. Goetz was not permitted by Judge Baraitser to testify on this point, even though two witnesses who were not present had previously been asked to testify on it.
>Baraitser’s legal rationale was this. It was not in his written evidence statement (submitted before Lewis had raised the question with other witnesses) so Goetz was only permitted to contradict Lewis’s deliberate introduction of a lie if Lewis asked him. Lewis refused to ask the one witness who was actually present what had happened, because Lewis knew the lie he is propagating would be exposed.
[...]
>Summers then asked about events leading to the publishing of the unredacted cables. Goetz said this was a complicated process. It started when Luke Harding and David Leigh published a book in February 2011 containing the password to the online cache of encrypted cables. This was discussed on various mirroring sites, and eventual publication of the full cache by Cryptome after Die Freitag became involved. Cryptome was at that time very well known and an important source for journalists.
>Summers then asked about the breakdown of relationships between Wikileaks and the Guardian. It was at this point that Baraitser ruled that Summers was not allowed to ask about what happened at the dinner he attended at El Moro restaurant. Summers made a formal request, as Lewis had introduced the subject with other witnesses who unlike Goetz had not been there. Lewis objected, and Baraitser said no.
Can someone explain to me how this is possible? I mean if witnesses with material knowledge about one of the key charges are barred from speaking about them during the trial, how are we to believe that this isn't anything other than a kangaroo court?
But from the post and the Dan Ellsberg testimony, it sounds like the news agencies even as far back as the Pentagon Papers were extremely aware of these needs, and especially Assange himself was, and proceeded with extreme caution and very deliberate understanding of the necessary costs to be weighed when consider cases where publishing e.g. an unredacted name was clearly in the public interest and far outweighed the risk to the named party.
A) Who died because of what Assange revealed to the world?
B) Who lost profit because of what Assange revealed to the world?
Unless you can answer truthfully to both of these questions, you are acting in bad faith and attempting to frame the conversation away from the real issue.
A) Nobody, B) Countless members of the CFR and Joint Chiefs of Staff, who profit from war by the minute.
2 BILLION DOLLARS A DAY SPENT ON WAR: NOTHING ON PEACE.
110 comments
[ 5.5 ms ] story [ 198 ms ] thread> It's a public hearing and any organization can "monitor" it all they like.
...because of covid the normally public courts are allowing far fewer people in to view the hearings, and the online substitute is difficult to access. As I understand it AI applied to be allowed to view the court session remotely, and were denied permission, and the reasons for that denial are unclear.
The Transparency Project talks about difficulties reporters and bloggers face accessing the English family courts, and some of these are similar problems.
www.transparencyproject.org.uk/
By the way, AI's website claims that they will be remotely monitoring the hearings (https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/09/uk-assange-ex...). Are you sure they can't see them?
Edit: I found the following on Twitter. The explanation given makes sense to me. https://twitter.com/StefSimanowitz/status/130328878171446886... (Twitter sucks. Scroll down in that thread to see the screenshot of the explanation.) See also this HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24491776
He was provided reputable links many times, which he deemed "conspiracy theories", refusing to engage in the facts within.
A significant portion of his recent history, in fact, is people begging him to read the facts; his replies come in the form "you Assange conspiracists ..."
I don't want to break HN rules on calling people out, but the above are straight facts that people really ought to be aware of before trying with this guy again.
It astounds me that people are putting Chomsky, Hersh, Pilger, Ellsberg, etc, who have all made dire warnings about this extraordinary case, in the box of "Assange conspiracists" - and getting away with it.
To use HN as intended means primarily posting thoughtful, substantive comments on topics of intellectual curiosity. Internet polemics are tedious and nasty, and that gets truer as the topic gets hotter and more sensational. Assange threads, for example, already years ago became repetitive to the point of utter pointlessness. Nobody's convincing anybody—people are just beating each other with the same talking points over and over. If that's the game you want to play on the internet, please do it somewhere else.
This should be one of the top comments, it’s not reasonable to disagree with this worry given the commenter behavior on this thread and all the previous iterations.
"Astroturfing is the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organization (e.g., political, advertising, religious or public relations) to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by grassroots participants."
Are you saying that I'm an agent of some larger organization and not revealing this? If not, what exactly do you mean by 'astroturfing'?
And why will you not take me up on my offer to talk about this? Does it not concern you that you may be making a false accusation?
It's cowardly and rude to make these kind of accusations without even giving the accused person any kind of opportunity to present you with evidence to the contrary.
It seems like a rhetorical deflection to try to make the discussion about semantics of the word “astroturfing” - which I do not agree to participate in.
Your communication habits throughout the thread cause me to believe it would be fruitless and possibly dangerous to actually talk to you outside of these comments.
I’m not writing any of this to engage with you or convince you, just hopefully as a thought provoking warning for other readers who come across the thread.
Again, we could easily resolve all this with a phone call, if you were actually interested in the truth of the matter. But I guess you'd rather hide behind your online persona and cast false accusations around.
All you need to do is look at the public 11-year history of the account you're complaining about to get an idea of how ridiculous this is. The bar for serious comments here is incredibly low—but it needs to be higher than that. I'm sure you can do much better if you want to, and if you don't want to, please find another forum that's better aligned with what you do want.
All of this holds even if foldr is completely wrong. I'm not making any claim about their views—I don't even know what their views are, nor care. The moderation issue here is that on this site, people can't issue the garden-variety internet insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, spying, etc., that the internet loves to generate ad nauseum. As the guidelines say, if you have evidence you should send it to hn@ycombinator.com so we can investigate. In this case you could simply have done the "investigation" yourself.
There's reams of previous explanation at https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme..., for anyone who wants to understand why we have this rule. The short version: because insinuations of astroturfing are poison to community, and because they nearly always collapse under inspection, usually trivially, as in this case.
It’s unconscionable to me that you would think the guidelines rule out my comment but wouldn’t find deep, inarguable cause for more concern over foldr’s comments.
I cannot see any way the account age or comment history bears relevance. Being a commonly-seen community member for years, then suddenly deciding to spam smear comments about Craig Murray’s alleged bias on posts about the Assange hearing still is quite flagrant.
1. Posting repetitively on flamewar topics is against the site guidelines.
2, Accusing other users of astroturfing is against the site guidelines.
foldr did #1. You did #2. You both broke the site guidelines so I replied to both of you.
I wish you'd just talk to me if you really think there is something sinister behind my posts, as you seem like a sincere person. It's actually quite hurtful to be accused of such things, regardless of how annoying or wrong I might be. Contact details temporarily on my profile.
You seem to have a real HN account. I tell you what, why don't you phone me and we can talk about this like adults? I'm actually fascinated to talk to someone who thinks that I'm not just some random guy on the internet posting my opinion.
And if we're still on the subject of the guidelines, making baseless accusations of this nature is certainly in violation of them.
To downvoters: if you're really concerned about shills or astroturfing, why don't you take me up on my offer? I mean, what are you actually objecting to here? Is it not ok for me to refute allegations that I'm a shill?
I read some of Murray's doubts - some of them hold weight (as in they are noteworthy), sure, and it's almost certain that SIS cleaned up the story (They aren't the police - the only material that gets published is published because it's useful) but Murray has _zero_ insider knowledge here. If you are questioning that it was a poisoning at all you better have something to stand on.
He has consistently been pointing in the opposite direction to the western line for years, and never correct in any case I can see. He claimed he had spoken to the "person" who leaked the DNC emails - if he actually thinks that he is either unbelievably naive or acting in bad faith.
"The US and Saudi Arabia have every reason to instigate a split between Germany and Russia at this time. Navalny is certainly a victim of international politics. That he is a victim of Putin I tend to doubt." Make your own mind up.
edit: -2 but no counterargument, wheres the fun in that
It's interesting the ways in which our own domestic propaganda can inform our worldviews.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/17/alexei-navalny...
You're skeptical that a far right Russian political network might have strong military connections who would have access?
I would also be skeptical of this idea if I truly believed that Putin had the extreme iron grip over military/FSB that he tries to portray. I believe it's quite a bit more chaotic there than he'd want you to believe though. I'm sure their opsec is not as good as it is in the US. After the SU fell they even auctioned off arms.
As to why not a gun - 1) it's quiet and surreptitious. 2) I reckon it might also be a message TO putin 3) I'm pretty sure they would want putin to be seen as responsible for the murder.
Novichok is rare ("[there is not] a single case of such poison being sold illegally" according to the director of the Russian plant that manufactured it [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novichok_agent#cite_note-FP453...]), and has only been observed in the wild in the hands of organizations like the GRU (at least in the west). Poisoning Navalny certainly should've required top level approval from someone, if not Putin then it's highly embarrassing - whose head is rolling?
HOWEVER
As I said, after the fall of the Soviet Union there was a free for all on Russian arms. It was chaos. This was even documented in the Nicholas Cage movie God of war.
I think it's fairly plausible that novichok was taken by Soviet military officers during that free for all and kept at home. Novichok is supposed to be stable for up to 50 years.
Skripal was interesting coz he blew the covers of about 100 GRU agents and was part of a spy swap. There is cover in having 100 people with motives.
Putin just after the poisoning was demanding (somewhat desperately I thought) that the UK send him evidence. I thought that was telling. It suggested he was just as keen to get to the bottom of it.
The British Inquiry (page ~245) concluded that it was likely the hit on Litvinenko was ordered close to the top. Putin was a KGB officer - he now doesn't take an interest anymore?
And if he blew the covers of 100 officers, they would've been under deep cover i.e. not going around assassinating people and going home on the plane.
In the case of Navalny, Putin's main opponent gets hit - if Putin didn't order it, it damages his credibility, I repeat: Whose head is rolling?
I didn't mention it earlier, but Russia no longer has a death penalty officially - this is why Skripal was alive to be swapped. Oleg Gordievsky was sentenced to death in absentia and I believe the order still stands (although hopefully unenforceable)
>And if he blew the covers of 100 officers, they would've been under deep cover
I hope it's not too controversial to say that they clearly weren't very competent and probably thought they were doing things properly.
>In the case of Navalny, Putin's main opponent gets hit - if Putin didn't order it, it damages his credibility, I repeat: Whose head is rolling?
Assuming Putin doesn't know, If I were him I would be furiously investigating but in wouldn't be keen to share with the world whose head rolled. Especially if it's FSB. If a US CIA agent went rogue do you think they'd tell us all about it? C'mon.
With skripal using him as part of a spy swap and then killing him ruins Putin's to negotiate. I don't think FSB agents who got their covers blown will give a fuck about that because they will desperately want revenge but Putin will.
Yes? "CIA agent goes rogue and kills Ronald McDonald" is bad PR for the US and the CIA in particular, of course they would emphasize that the agent was not acting under their orders. Organizations like Bellingcat (Who Murray calls warmongering propagandists by the way) make it increasingly difficult to get away with secrecy, people will find out so you have to separate yourself from the controversy.
Bellingcat looks suspiciously like it was "adopted" as a public front for CIA to release intelligence they want out there publicly using parallel construction.
Not necessarily a "bad" thing but I've yet to see them release something the CIA wouldn't either be either happy or ecstatic to see in the public domain ("Russia shot down an airliner you say???").
Idk do you know of any examples of them using "open source data" to expose an undercover CIA agent for instance? Expose a an American war crime like wikileaks did with collateral murder? I can't and I'd be shocked if they actually did in the future.
Murray also said that he was approached with DNC emails, which means that unless he was lying someone has sounded him out as a source (and we know where they came from)
edit: mouthpiece not source.
https://twitter.com/eliothiggins/status/1047597999105462272?...
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2018/09/06/god...
He was also fired from the foreign office in 2004, make of what I have provided as you will.
The only reason this post is even on HN has more to do with confirmation bias than any truth.
So the Russians have to have figured out a reason, after a decade, that suddenly this man had to die in a grizzly and obvious assassination. Despite the fact they already had him under arrest and decided he wasn't all that important to them. It is very hard to imagine what that reason would be. And on the converse, anglosphere intelligence services have a history of lying.
It is reasonable to question the Salisbury poisoning. It is hard to see what was in it for Russia. There wasn't an outcome here that is good for them, so it is unclear why they would have done it.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/vladimir-put...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/09/10/traitors-mus...
Skripal was swapped for 10 illegals (the illegals, from 2010). Bringing them back was a propaganda win, they sort of got away with it, and the west got Skripal back in return.
If they can get anyone, any time ... why pick someone irrelevant? Why not get someone where it is in their interests for them to die?
That is a really bad motive. All they are doing is tipping their operational methods and compromising the identity of their assassins. Plus it costs money and is risky.
Either the Russians are really stupid or there is some aspect of the story that isn't public. What that aspect is, who knows. But it is probably there.
And the brazenness of it fits with what I have said - We can get away with this anywhere, you are not safe.
Spies have been killing people for millenia, and the KGB (now FSB) and GRU are particularly good at it. John Barron's book on the KGB from the 70s literally had a list of a few hundred known KGB officers at the back before the index, they all know each other to at least some degree (They'll suss you out the moment you are deployed to a foreign embassy).
> What that aspect is, who knows. But it is probably there.
Like what? Maybe they poisoned themselves with Novichok for a laugh, but it's unlikely. Remember that a lot of Russian money passes through the British ruling party and London so it's not really in their interest to ratfuck
I don't think individual FSB agents whom skripal blew the cover of give a fuck about this but I'm certain Putin does.
I think the point is very much to send a message to current serving Russian intelligence officers to think very carefully before betraying their country.
The correct answer to my question is (if you go 40 rather than 20 years) that the bodies are very much buried in Northern Ireland (although the FRU was part of the British Army)
The Russians have always been much better at espionage than the west, that's why they're bolder with these public hits.
It is indeed fuzzy
Also I think espionage is (and I think I agree, the Soviets were better at infiltration probably) orthogonal to bold public hits. The public hits are an intimidation tactic.
There is NO logic to violating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, nor any of the myriad laws against extrajudicial killing, rendition and torture. It defies logic, unless the real intent is to foment the conditions ripe for yet more, endless war.
https://truepublica.org.uk/united-kingdom/britains-secret-as...
This is another atrocity being committed on the general public by the military industrial criminal state. Doublethink and newspeak have been very skillfully applied to ensure a lack of culpability - however, to those of us who have had to dig innocent loved ones out from under America's piles of burning rubble, it is very, very clear that the American people are responsible for this mess, whether they understand their own laws or not.
Edit: yes, I guess the US has similar optics in countries it operates killing drones as Russia has in Europe. Except probably worse.
https://truepublica.org.uk/united-kingdom/britains-secret-as...
If they spy swap then poison him, next time they won't get a spy swap - nobody is going to spy swap with a country that then assassinates the swapped spy. They will have gained nothing and lost an option. They will be worse off.
It is possible that the Russians are stupid, and are happy to be worse off having made a point. Stranger things have happened. But it is also possible, and indeed quite likely, they are not stupid and there is something else going on.
It's not exactly a conspiracy theory that the FSB have historically enjoyed an unusually high level of autonomy:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekism
The prosecutor is allowed to repeatedly quote Luke Harding's account of what Assange supposedly said, but Goetz isn't allowed to give his opinion - which is apparently very different from that of Harding. Harding's personal hatred of Assange is well known, and he published this false (and as-of-yet un-retracted) story [1] about Assange supposedly meeting with Manafort in the Ecuadorian embassy, so it's entirely plausible that Goetz' "memory" of what Assange said is more accurate than Harding's.
It's been pretty clear throughout this story that the judge is very unfavorable towards Assange. They're just going through the formalities, but we can all guess what the outcome will be - unless there's enough political pressure on the UK government to stop the extradition.
1. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/27/manafort-hel...
For example Kremlin dismissed photos of Salisbury suspects as fake news, and Murray jumped right into it without critical thinking or distrust against Kremlin as source. NATO chemical weapons exercise taking place on Salisbury Plain seems like better explanation to him.
For these and other reasons I can't trust his reporting to be factual. We should find other sources.
He claimed to have inside information from the Foreign Office, that the government was negotiating an agreement with the EU with the intention of breaking it later. I don't think anyone else reported this at the time.
A little under a year later, it seems that what he reported was true.
No it doesn't; it merely seems that the outcome of the conspiracy he fabricated last year is similar to the possible outcome of something that might happen in the future. Broken clocks etc.
I'm not sure whether in general to believe him.
In this case I'm convinced, from what we know now, that he was telling the truth: that the government was planning, at the time the backstop was negotiated, for how to break it, and that this was unusual enough for Foreign Office legal advisers to be distinctly unhappy about it.
I don't think this demonstrates that every time he claims he's reporting insider information he's telling the truth. But it does weigh in the direction of treating him as a truth-teller.
It's the nearest thing we can get in this sort of situation to gaining confidence by verifying a theory's prediction experimentally.
Boris Johnson to skirt around law and violate treaty isn't exactly out of character.
If he'd written "I've heard from legal advisers that they've been asked to provide a justification for breaking part of a treaty but they don't want me to say which", I wouldn't put much weight on that turning out to be true.
It's clear from reading his analysis that he has no interest in trying to remain even slightly detached. If he wrote that the sky were blue, you'd be well advised to double-check yourself.
The older threads on Litvinenko have basically the same debates going on, same with Skripal, now with Navalny. "but how can you prove Putin [noted ex-KGB Lieutenant Colonel turned naive pacifist apparently] ordered it"
Skepticism, even extreme skepticism, is generally a good thing, and having some people out there that are convinced that something is not as it seems is a good thing. Even if they're wrong, they will look very closely and bring things to attention that everyone else will not look into because they subconsciously feel that it's not a good idea to poke that hornets nest if you want to keep your ideological world view in tact.
With Navalny, for example, there's been quite a bit of demands to halt or cancel North Stream 2. There are obviously very powerful interests in multiple settings that would very much like to see that happen. Obviously that doesn't mean anything for the case itself, but if you flat our reject that conspiracies and intelligence false flag operations exist (or, alternatively, believe "we're the good guys, we wouldn't do that"), you won't look into it, because why would you.
I spend a lot of time talking to actual tankies, I know what diversity looks like - hackernews is just a different type of hive mind.
No, but I believe you should doubt the public position of whatever country you live in, on principle. They might be right, they might be wrong, but usually they don't care about being right or wrong, they care about their agenda. I find it a good idea to keep that in mind.
> hackernews is just a different type of hive mind
Meh, a hive mind that fights itself isn't a hive mind.
No major news source is covering this to the extent Craig Murray is. That in itself should be more worrying than Murray's views on other matters. His reporting on Assange has been very good. There are other sources, but I doubt they diverge much from what Murray's reporting. See for example Kevin Gosztola's reporting: https://dissenter.substack.com
https://www.salon.com/2010/11/29/wikileaks_germany_el_masri/
"A top U.S. diplomat strongly warned German counterparts against issuing arrest warrants for CIA agents who were involved in the kidnapping of a German citizen, who was brought to Afghanistan and tortured before officials concluded that they had the wrong man."
From the diplomatic cable, published by Wikileaks, we can see that the US is actually threatening Germany while at the same time writing:
"our intention was not to threaten Germany, but rather to urge that the German Government weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the U.S."
To paraphrase James Mickens, it seems if the USA threatens your country, "they’re going to hold a press conference and say “It wasn’t us” as they wear t-shirts that say “IT WAS DEFINITELY US.”"
After seeing the posts each day trying simply to discredit the author of the reports instead of claiming that there's any inaccuracy in what he reports, everybody should consider that maybe there are some people who would rather that nobody reads about all the topics brought up there.
And there are many very interesting topics indeed. I advise anybody taking the time and going through the previous days too. The author of the report claims that it is officially for him not allowed to post the links to the written statements of the witnesses of the defense.
Reading his reports is insightful, and I'm not aware of anybody doing more thorough reporting now.
(I mean, it's ok to have fringe ideas. But if you are pushing them without having much to back them up with, and at the same time acting as a reporter, lets just say I wish we had more to choose from.)
I haven't noticed a single one.
For example, it's obvious that the judge actively did everything they can to limit the chance that the case gets proper coverage in the press.
My opinion is that Murray is disservice for the cause.
We cannot know whether the Salisbury Plain weapons exercise is the legitimate source of the Novichok substance - because lies, deceit and 'state secrecy' are used to mask the truth.
So, you'd prefer journalists not do their job and raise questions about these issues, because they cannot possibly know the truth?
Your disinterest in Murray is irrelevant, anyway. He is the tip of the iceberg in terms of who is reporting on the travesty that is the Assange extradition trial. Fortunately, not everyone is as easily swayed by the military-industrial spook state as you are, though ..
Within minutes every time, the same tired, false, laughable comments deriding Craig Murray and ignoring the written material show up.
Nobody’s buying this criticism of Craig Murray. This appears by all accounts to be an accurate reflection of what was said, and it’s presented in a way where you can clearly form your own opinions and will not be unduly influenced by any of the writing expressing Murray’s own reaction or take.
I wish the moderators would put a stop to it. Every single one of these comments should be flagged.
Within minutes every time, the same tired, false, laughable comments deriding all criticism of Craig Murray and ignoring the written material show up.
Both of our comments add nothing to the discussion
I'd probably listen to fox News if it were reporting something important everybody else refuses to discuss, but that's just me.
It becomes a moral issue when they don't hold themselves above that standard. They're fine for administrative tasks, but not people you want to take risks together with.
As regards Harding/Leigh giving away the password in their book - I find it very hard to believe that this was an honest accident on their part. The defence that they and the Guardian newspaper gave is just not credible ~ 'oh, but we didn't realise'. And beyond that, if you were going to publish the password and somehow thought it was ok, you would at least consult someone who knew more on the topic that they claim that they did.
>James Lewis QC for the prosecution had been permitted gratuitously to read to two previous witnesses with zero connection to this claim, an extract from a book by Luke Harding and David Leigh in which Harding claims that at a dinner at El Moro Restaurant Julian Assange had stated he did not care if US informants were killed, because they were traitors who deserved what was coming to them.
>This morning giving evidence was John Goetz, now Chief Investigations Editor of NDR (German public TV), then of Der Spiegel. Goetz was one of the four people at that dinner. He was ready and willing to testify that Julian said no such thing and Luke Harding is (not unusually) lying. Goetz was not permitted by Judge Baraitser to testify on this point, even though two witnesses who were not present had previously been asked to testify on it.
>Baraitser’s legal rationale was this. It was not in his written evidence statement (submitted before Lewis had raised the question with other witnesses) so Goetz was only permitted to contradict Lewis’s deliberate introduction of a lie if Lewis asked him. Lewis refused to ask the one witness who was actually present what had happened, because Lewis knew the lie he is propagating would be exposed.
[...]
>Summers then asked about events leading to the publishing of the unredacted cables. Goetz said this was a complicated process. It started when Luke Harding and David Leigh published a book in February 2011 containing the password to the online cache of encrypted cables. This was discussed on various mirroring sites, and eventual publication of the full cache by Cryptome after Die Freitag became involved. Cryptome was at that time very well known and an important source for journalists.
>Summers then asked about the breakdown of relationships between Wikileaks and the Guardian. It was at this point that Baraitser ruled that Summers was not allowed to ask about what happened at the dinner he attended at El Moro restaurant. Summers made a formal request, as Lewis had introduced the subject with other witnesses who unlike Goetz had not been there. Lewis objected, and Baraitser said no.
Can someone explain to me how this is possible? I mean if witnesses with material knowledge about one of the key charges are barred from speaking about them during the trial, how are we to believe that this isn't anything other than a kangaroo court?
A) Who died because of what Assange revealed to the world?
B) Who lost profit because of what Assange revealed to the world?
Unless you can answer truthfully to both of these questions, you are acting in bad faith and attempting to frame the conversation away from the real issue.
A) Nobody, B) Countless members of the CFR and Joint Chiefs of Staff, who profit from war by the minute.
2 BILLION DOLLARS A DAY SPENT ON WAR: NOTHING ON PEACE.