
Survivor of CIA Torture and Rendition Supports Assange at Extradition Trial - k1m
https://dissenter.substack.com/p/khaled-el-masri-survivor-of-cia-torture
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doublesCs
> The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) confirmed nine years after that El
> Masri was “severely beaten, sodomized, shackled, and hooded, and subjected
> total sensory deprivation—carried out in the presence of state officials of
> Macedonia and within its jurisdiction.”

> Macedonia’s “government was consequently responsible for those acts
> performed by foreign officials…Those measures had been used with
> premeditation, the aim being to cause Mr. Masri severe pain and suffering in
> order to obtain information,” the ECHR additionally found.

> (...)

> “The U.S. diplomatic cables revealed the extent of pressure brought upon the
> German authorities (and in parallel, relevant Spanish authorities) not to
> act upon the clear evidence of criminal acts by the USA even though by then
> exposed,” Goetz added.

Then some Americans are confused that many in the western world don't like
American influence. I find it outrageous that these things happen, and I
wouldn't want my government to consider such a country an ally.

~~~
yodsanklai
I totally agree. First, many Americans don't support these acts, it's just
beyond their control. And others do support them but either minimize them or
believe they are justified for a greater good.

And a lot are totally clueless and just have no idea of what's going on.

There's a lot of propaganda, poor education and lack of information in the US.
Just watch a presidential debate, it's a joke.

~~~
sandworm101
Thats the problem with democracy: the people own the mistakes of those they
elect. Dont like what they do? Vote them out of office. Arrest them. Jail
them. If the system fails, fix the system.

~~~
suifbwish
No the problem with democracy, we’ll the USAs in particular is there exists no
department or task force whose sole duty is to enforce the constitution at
every level and to imprison those in government positions who abuse their
powers for personal gain or immoral purposes.

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elmo2you
> .. in the United States, it will likely be excluded as irrelevant because
> the Espionage Act does not allow a public interest defense.

Remind me again, what made the USA any better than North Korea or any other
off-the-rails criminal regime?

If this statement about the Espionage Act is correct, then why is there even a
discussion whether Assange will get a fair trial in the USA? It's plain as
daylight that he never will, even for that specific fact only.

In fact, any country that signed and ratified the UN's UDHR, should be barred
from extraditing anyone to the USA. Especially for cases like these.

If this involved an African, Asian or a Middle Eastern country, the USA and EU
would no doubt threaten with bombing the country into submission, if they
would continue to violate basic human right in order to cover up their
criminal actions.

~~~
AsyncAwait
Exactly.

A lot of people ask also why Snowden keeps "hiding" in Russia and doesn't come
back to face the music.

It's because he's not even allowed to use the public good defense per the
Espionage Act.

As for Assange, the poor man has already suffered enough, what the UN amounts
to torture. This is despicable and anyone who is concerned about the Uyghurs,
Rohingya etc. should voice a strong opposition to what is happening to Assange
in the West.

P.S. His prosecution isn't even about the 2016 election, however you feel
about that, it's about him exposing war crimes committed by the U.S.
government, killing civilians, including knowingly journalists and laughing
about it.

~~~
chupasaurus
Snowden avoids the prosecution because even on a public trial he will get a
life-long sentence since Espionage Act doesn't have an exemption for acting in
the public interest.

~~~
AsyncAwait
Right. What did I say differently?

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atonse
After reading the NSA article about getting ISIS in very subtle ways that
makes it seem like technical glitches, does anyone believe that there were
actual “technical glitches” preventing this guy from testifying on video about
his CIA torture?

~~~
slim
yes, I believe there's a team funded using millions of US taxpayer money
working on sabotaging Assanges defense in every possible way including illegal
and immoral ways like hacking, bribing, black mailing, etc..

~~~
elmo2you
You can bet on it. Also, these people will be highly motivated and not just be
"doing their job".

They'll be made well aware that their "way of life" and "reality as they know
it" literally depends on the success of their work. Considering how these
people are part of a criminal enterprise, it can be argued it's actually a
true self-fulfilling prophesy.

As far as I'm concerned, people involved in such actions deserve to be hunted
down and illiminated with extreme prejudice, by any covert agency of any
country that does actually respect due process of the legal system.

~~~
luckylion
> As far as I'm concerned, people involved in such actions deserve to be
> hunted down and illiminated with extreme prejudice, by any covert agency of
> any country that does actually respect due process of the legal system.

They have nothing to fear, then, as those countries wouldn't have covert
agencies, even if they existed, which they don't.

I agree about the first part though. When losing (on the grand scheme, not
necessarily on a single case like Assange) means you go to jail, you get extra
motivated.

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malux85
That was painful to read, that poor man. Absolutely disgusting behaviour from
the US.

~~~
Yaggo
It’s totally absurd that US can kidnap random people outside their country.

~~~
pvaldes
> It’s totally absurd that US can kidnap random people outside their country.

kidnap... and assassinate.

Is not the US people in any case, is their government. And some of those
people seem to have severe and worrying sadistic undercurrents in their
personality. As human beings, torturers are a real failure.

~~~
squarefoot
> Is not the US people in any case, is their government.

This a million times. I'm speaking broadly as I'm not from the US, however
this applies pretty much to every country: "People are not their government"
should be always considered when criticizing any nation or being criticized by
others because of government politics. Identifying people with their
government choices is the 1st step towards building hatred that will be used
to convince weak minded citizen to enroll and invade that country. Most wars
happened because governments screwed their own people convincing them there
were enemies ready to kill them, where in fact there was nobody.

~~~
arcticbull
> This a million times. I'm speaking broadly as I'm not from the US, however
> this applies pretty much to every country: "People are not their government"
> should be always considered when criticizing any nation or being criticized
> by others because of government politics.

Disagreed completely.

In a democracy, people _are_ responsible for their governments. That's the
whole idea of democracy. If you can pick your leadership you are responsible
for who you pick and every single action they take. You get the credit for the
good, and you get the blame for the bad. With great power comes great
responsibility and whatnot.

In an autocracy where people cannot choose their leadership, it's more murky.

[edit] It's so weird to see this American blame shirking from the ground floor
all the way to the president. "Well, I'm not responsible for the government
just because I pick them," to staying home on Election Day and responding
"well he's not my president," to POTUS' perennial "well, Obama and Hillary are
really at fault."

Is nobody taking responsibility for anything anymore?

~~~
squarefoot
People can vote, but the are lots of things out of control. In my country
people can do squat about the government actions for example against organized
crime, as much as all common US citizen could not decide whether invade Iraq
or not after 9/11\. Many actions by governments lie outside of any control by
the people, which I concur very often a good thing, but when things end up
really bad and the government becomes an alien entity with its own agenda,
then calling it democracy doesn't help much.

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yodsanklai
What strikes me with the US is that they can be very progressive on some
issues (e.g. lgbt rights), yet totally backward on others (torture, death
penalty, mass incarceration and so on...).

~~~
mantap
The former is distraction for the others. The left in USA has been convinced
(or convinced itself) that identity politics is more important than human
rights.

~~~
CraigJPerry
Does the USA have a left today? The right who voted for the new deal are left
of today’s left.

Today’s left are more right than yesterday’s right.

~~~
arcticbull
Yep, the two major parties are "center-right" and "far-right" politically.
There are some leftists but they aren't represented, and because of the two-
party system they won't be. Two parties ~= one party.

~~~
stjohnswarts
AOC and her squad are very far left and they're mainstream.

~~~
CraigJPerry
>> very far left

On what grounds? AOC, like Sanders, advocates for centrist policies like those
in the UK. AOC is a left leaning centrist. The rhetoric in the US does label
her and Sanders extreme left but that’s evidence in favour of my point - there
is no left in the USA.

Who is the USA’s version of John McDonnell telling us all that there’s a lot
to learn from Das Kapital?

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mlthoughts2018
A lot of comments are (rightfully) condemning American atrocity, but let’s not
lose sight that it is defense for Assange as well.

His actions clearly came with the moral imperative of whistleblowing - even
just this one example shows the humanitarian crimes that would go unrevealed
if the leaked documents weren’t published.

There’s just no way to pretend like Assange caused harm or violated law -
whistleblowing is not stealing, it’s not treason, it’s not endangerment of
affected government perpetrators. It’s the exposure of mass scale criminal
murder and torture.

~~~
Fnoord
The problem I have with him is that his massive leaks were politically
motivated.

The helicopter who shot journalists, that movie was genuine, and a proper
leak. All the diplomatic cables being leaked? Clinton's e-mails? I don't
believe all of that was in the public interest. He fell in the trap of making
it political, us vs them (why he went in bed with the Russians), and
disregarding operational safety.

~~~
mlthoughts2018
I don’t see any basis it could be disputed in the case of the diplomatic
cables. This very witness’s testimony proves it (as his torture and subsequent
efforts by the US to pressure Germany and Spain to take no action when the
criminal nature of it was learned - it was only brought to light because of
the leaked cables, as explained in this post).

These facts render it moot what you or I might personally _think_ about his
political motivations. Not only are such speculations not a basis for any of
the charges, but the very evidence itself (the cables) requires us to see the
humanitarian imperative that they be leaked and thus to view leakers and
publishers as whistleblowers, setting all speculated internal motives we can’t
prove (and which don’t supersede the moral imperative here) aside.

In the case of the DNC email leaks, I could see a better argument that it was
political, but then it also wouldn’t matter. None of the Espionage Act charges
or accusations of putting US agents in grave harm are based on leaked DNC
emails, only Iraq War leaks and the diplomatic cables. It would be awfully
hard to prove any serious harm from publishing the DNC emails - and also the
standard for publishers protected in that case is much higher. Keep in mind
all that is proved that he did is _publish_ them (no different than tons of
other news outlets).

~~~
Fnoord
My point isn't that there's no useful content in the cables; my opinion is
that it wasn't screened well. The data was dumped, not carefully screened.
Assange M.O. changed in that regard, somewhere in the past 10 years, and that
is the moment where I started to believe his opponents had a point.

> In the case of the DNC email leaks, I could see a better argument that it
> was political, but then it also wouldn’t matter. None of the Espionage Act
> charges or accusations of putting US agents in grave harm are based on
> leaked DNC emails, only Iraq War leaks and the diplomatic cables. It would
> be awfully hard to prove any serious harm from publishing the DNC emails -
> and also the standard for publishers protected in that case is much higher.
> Keep in mind all that is proved that he did is publish them (no different
> than tons of other news outlets).

It pretty much affected the outcome of the election up to the point that we
USA got an orangutan in office. It is something Russian troll farms and
Cambridge Analytica were also trying to do. All three's actions affect our
democratic process in a negative way (ie. we want stability not chaos right
before an election). Is it basis to get him prosecuted via Espionage Act? No,
but that Act is retarded either way; lets look at other laws instead. How
about illegal access to a remote computer? Then we're getting to more fair
waters. Another one is putting innocent lives in danger by leaking sensitive
data.

~~~
mlthoughts2018
By every account in the extradition hearing, Assange was obsessed with
carefully screening the material and copiously considered the costs and moral
imperatives in cases when an identifying piece of information had to be
included.

The testimony of John Sloboda of Iraq Body Count (which deeply depended on
Wikileaks materials to corroborate many illegal civilian deaths in the Iraq
war) is particularly clear on this. He had direct knowledge of the processes
Assange used, in conjunction with other major news agencies including the New
York Times and The Guardian, to redact as much identifiable information as
possible, and even revealed significant details about the software they built
to do named entity removal and to extract entries from dictionaries and so
forth, across tens of thousands of documents.

It is pure myth that Assange lacked careful, discerning effort to redact
materials.

As for your response about the DNC emails I think you have it quite backwards.
Assange did not destabilize any election or play any role in Trump being
elected. The DNC did that by the behavior that the leaked emails revealed.

The DNC members destabilized the election and created uncertainty and outrage
that Trump capitalized on. The DNC members and officials did that, not
Assange.

Assange _reported_ it.

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dsign
Let's see what the British court does; I just hope they don't bring more shame
to the country.

~~~
RobertoG
I don't know the particulars of this case or the UK, so, maybe I'm wrong, but
this is probably already decided.

The way this kind of thing is done is by managing that the case goes to the
"proper" judge.

~~~
pftf
From what I've seen so far, this is just a show trial for them to go through
the motions.

Assange is going to be extradited to the US and there's nothing anyone can do
about it, short of breaking him out of his imprisonment.

~~~
jMyles
> short of breaking him out of his imprisonment.

Is anyone strategizing around this? Do they accept donations?

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jedimind
That's fantastic of him. I wish more people would support Assange and realise
that this sort of treatment is unacceptable.

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BostonJiao
The empitome of American Imperialism.

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somurzakov
wow, what a shithole this CIA is. Not different from Russia's GRU/KGB

~~~
supergirl
it's much worse and 10x bigger budget

