Your Man in the Public Gallery: Assange Hearing Day 11
craigmurray.org.uk
craigmurray.org.uk
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
My opinion is that Murray is disservice for the cause.
(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.
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 ..
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.
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.
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 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.
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)
https://truepublica.org.uk/united-kingdom/britains-secret-as...
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
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.
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.
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...
It's not exactly a conspiracy theory that the FSB have historically enjoyed an unusually high level of autonomy:
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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...