The
Torture of Julian Assange
By Paul
Craig Roberts
July
01, 2019 "Information
Clearing House"
-
In a
few days July 4th will be upon us.
We will hear endless nonsense from
insouciant speakers and editorialists about what
a great democracy we are, having won our freedom
from being a British colony.
One thing the United States most certainly is
not is a democracy.
A democracy requires an informed
electorate, and the United States most certainly
does not have an informed electorate. The
American media, indeed, the entirety of the
Western print and TV media, functions as a
Propaganda Ministry for Washington and the
ruling oligarchies.
The explanations are controlled to serve
the agendas of the ruling elites.
The persecution and torture of Julian
Assange proves conclusively that the First
Amendment is a dead-letter Amendment.
The vaunted rule of law in the Great American
Democracy is a dead-letter rule of law.
Since the Clinton regime America has had
four criminal regimes in a row, the presidents
and high officials of which are more guilty of
war crimes than the German National Socialists
who were tried at Nuremberg on ex post facto
grounds in order to distract from the war crimes
of the victorious allies.
Without an honest Fourth Estate it is impossible
to prevent a democracy from becoming a tyranny.
In America tyranny is far advanced.
Suppose that Americans somehow became
aware of the truth about Julian Assange’s total
innocence that has been disclosed by Nils Melzer,
UN Special Rapporteur on Torture.
What could they do about it short of
violent revolution and complete elimination of
the ruling elites?
|
Are You Tired Of
The Lies And
Non-Stop Propaganda?
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Formerly, the US Constitution was revered, but
today even law faculties and judges see the
Constitution as something to find a way around.
The vast majority of Americans themselves
have no idea that the Constitution is the
bulwark of their independence and liberty.
Americans have also lost a sense of unity.
Massive immigration has produced a
diversity that cannot be united.
In the place of unity, we have the
disunity of Identity Politics. There
are advantages to being preferred minorities and
genders that the core population of the country
does not have. None of these serious
issues will be mentioned in July 4th speeches.
Nils
Melzer describes
how his investigation of Assange’s
treatment liberated him from the totally false
picture that has been created in order to
establish the legal precedent that government
crimes against humanity cannot be revealed. In
the “American Democracy,” the people are not
permitted to know.
“In
the end it finally dawned on me that I had been
blinded by propaganda, and that Assange had been
systematically slandered to divert attention
from the crimes he exposed.
Once he had been dehumanized through
isolation, ridicule and shame, just like the
witches we used to burn at the stake, it was
easy to deprive him of his most fundamental
rights without provoking public outrage
worldwide. And thus, a legal precedent is being
set, through the backdoor of our own
complacency, which in the future can and will be
applied just as well to disclosures by The
Guardian, the New York Times and ABC News.
“Even so, you may say, why spend so much breath
on Assange, when countless others are tortured
worldwide? Because this is not only about
protecting Assange, but about preventing a
precedent likely to seal the fate of Western
democracy. For once telling the truth has become
a crime, while the powerful enjoy impunity, it
will be too late to correct the course. We will
have surrendered our voice to censorship and our
fate to unrestrained tyranny.
“This Op-Ed has been offered for publication to
the Guardian, The Times, the Financial Times,
the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian, the
Canberra Times, the Telegraph, the New York
Times, the Washington Post, Thomson Reuters
Foundation, and Newsweek.
None
responded positively.”
Nils
Melzer is a Swiss academic, author and
practitioner in the field of international law.
Since 1 November 2016, Melzer has been serving
as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on
Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment.
This
article was originally published by “Medium”.
https://medium.com/@njmelzer/demasking-the-torture-of-julian-assange-b252ffdcb768
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of
the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate
editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was
columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News
Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many
university appointments. His internet columns
have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts'
latest books are
The Failure of Laissez Faire
Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West,
How America Was Lost,
and
The Neoconservative Threat to
World Order.
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and support Dr, Roberts Work.
The
views expressed in this article are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of Information Clearing House.
