Articles
Why Julian Assange Should NOT be Pardoned
How not pardoning journalist Julian Assange will ultimately strengthen the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Tired of the hypocrisy in government. Tired of the bought politicians and corrupt legislatures.
Tired of the moral fluidity that flows between and has been revealed by those deemed closest to us.
Mentally exhausted, physically fatigued, and beaten to within an inch of his political life. Yet, here he stands to speak his truth.
Me.
Oh, you thought that description was of Julian Assange? Of course it was.
Assange is me. Assange is you. Assange is MSNBC and CNN, albeit an actual journalistic version of the two, with an actual 100% factual rating for the website of the media and news organization he founded.
Yet, there he stands, a seemingly broken man, on a stand, in a courtroom where he’s not allowed to truly make his stand.
Why Are “They” After Julian Assange?
Well, to find that information out, the first question you need to ask is who is “they”?
It may look as though it’s the U.S. government after Assange, but it seems as though they are just a proxy for the U.S. oligarchs based on political ‘teams.’
On April 05, 2010, Wikileaks posted about the hidden war crimes of the United States military that took place in July 2007.
That information was given to the Wikileaks founder by Chelsea Elizabeth Manning, formerly Bradley Edward Manning, who was a Private first class in the United States Army.
The U.S. government didn’t like that, of course, but, in 2013, their Department of Justice, under the presidency of Barack Obama, concluded something obvious:
That prosecution of the journalist who or the news organization that obtained and posted the information would, in essence, be the destruction of the 1st Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.
And, although they came to this conclusion indirectly and seemingly not out of principle, their conclusion was ultimately correct.
No, it wasn’t primarily about the country.
Seeing as though their whole having a “New York Times problem” statement, as they described it, was about them having to prosecute other news organizations, too, just to quench their Assange blood lust, which they were not willing to do, it was clearly about protecting companies owned by billionaire donors.
Oligarchs.
So the government decided to protect those oligarchs and, in doing so, indirectly upheld the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Unfortunately, that whole situational setup was just the appetizer for the absolutely tasteless ‘constitutional attack’ meal that was being prepared behind closed government kitchen doors.
How “They” Cooked Up An Assange Attack Plan*
Although the U.S. Department of Justice ultimately dropped the charges they had against Julian Assange in 2013, the videos released by Wikileaks at the start of the decade were absolutely devastating to the U.S. government’s credibility.
So, did anything else of significance to this bombshell of a story happen during that three-year period?
Well buckle up, because you’re about to enter a chain-reaction-of-events world of coincidence that would make even the most ardent opponents of conspiracy theories raise an eyebrow or two.
Now, again, the damning videos of America’s war crimes were released in April 2010, right?
Well, across the world, coincidentally Swedish Prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Julian Assange in August 2010 for two allegations: One for rape and one for both molestation and unlawful coercion.
Assange denied the allegations, which were weirdly thrust upon him only four months after he released the U.S. war crimes videos.
Four months.
But that’s just coincidence, right? Ok, no problem. Let’s keep going.
In May 2012, extradition was granted to Sweden to question Assange over the rape, molestation, and unlawful coercion allegations, and one month later Assange fled to the Ecuadorean embassy in London.
Now Assange had already been arrested in 2012 and “bailed” the second attempt at his arrest.
So, fearing what was coming, one month later Assange entered the Ecuadorean Embassy under an application for asylum, which he was granted two months later in August 2012.
Fast-forward three years to August 2015, and the molestation and unlawful coercion charges were dropped by Swedish prosecutors because of legal time constraints.
This left only the most serious of the accusations against Assange from the Swedish government:
Rape.
Almost two years later in May 2017, Sweden suddenly drops Assange’s rape investigation after a UN panel ruled that both they and the UK authorities had been detaining Assange “arbitrarily” for seven years.
So, all of this time they’ve hanged these serious charges over Assange’s head, which put Assange into a seven-year anxiety prison and a five-year Embassy one…
…but then dropped them?
But why?
So now Assange is stuck in the Embassy, seemingly fearing that the invisible hand of the world’s Super Power has been moving behind the scenes.
Fast-forward again and, coincidentally, for the next few years, the UK, Ecuador, and Assange’s lawyer are battling regarding his fate via the courts, but fate over what really?
Next thing you know, we all look up and, in April 2019, the Metropolitan Police go into the Ecuadorian Embassy, literally carry Assange out of the place that had been his home for almost five years, and detain him for “failing to surrender to the court” over a warrant issued in 2012.
2012. Another seven years prior.
Seven years.
But those warrants were issued regarding charges that were dropped, right?
Then, out of nowhere, one month later, here comes 17 additional criminal indictments on Assange in May 2019 regarding Assange allegedly violating the Espionage Act via his role in obtaining and publishing documents from a source.
You know, the documents showing America’s war crimes from April 2010 (yes, more than nine years prior) and the thing that every journalist in the world does or would do if they had an opportunity?
And, simultaneously, Sweden reopened its investigation into the sexual assault charges on Assange, but then dropped it in November 2019.
Did you get all of that?
So, to recap:
• Assange drops a bombshell on the U.S.
• He suddenly has sexual assault charges arbitrarily drop from the sky on him
• He gets arrested, released, then flees
• Extradition was granted to Sweden for Assange, so…
• …knowing how these governments work, Assange flees to the Ecuadorean Embassy
• The Ecuadorean Embassy grants him asylum
• Three years later, 2/3rds of his charges are dropped by Sweden
• Two years later, it’s ruled that Assange has been being “detained arbitrarily” by Sweden and the UK
• Fast-forward, and the last 1/3rd of the sexual assault investigation is dropped
• Assange then goes to legal war with the UK and Ecuador because of his inhumane treatment
• Next thing you know, Ecuador allows the Metropolitan Police to come into the Ecuadorean Embassy and arrest Assange
• The United States almost immediately swoops in with 17 additional charges and Sweden reopens its sexual assault investigation on Assange
• Then, a few months later, Sweden drops the charges again
Can you see now?
So who was causing all of this hell to reign down on Julian Assange?
Well, it seemed that the primary culprit had finally made visible their hand, and the opening and reopening of the sexual assault case against Assange was seemingly cover for making him vulnerable to extradition to the one entity that seems to have begun this psychological assault on Assange in 2010:
The U.S. government.
But through all of these shenanigans, did Assange actually violate the law? Not based on the standards of the 1st Amendment, journalism itself, or Whistleblower protections.
So why is it that “they” are relentlessly trying to take this journalist’s head off, politically speaking?
It’s simple.
Why a Pardon from “Their” President Would Be Eternally Problematic
There is something called ‘precedent’ when it comes to interactions with individuals, regardless if that interaction is on a personal or professional level.
Precedent usually sets boundaries for those interactions.
For example, if you pay for the movie tickets, I’ll pay for the popcorn. Or, if a previous court case allowed for the use of particular tactics or evidence, then a lawyer can cite that case as precedent for them using the same or similar tactics or evidence.
The precedent that is being set in this case against Julian Assange, by way of the corrupt U.S. government, is that, if you embarrass or threaten the livelihood or power of the oligarchs who own the U.S. government, they’ll use their riches to destroy you.
And embarrass them, Assange did.
The problem with that diabolical tactic is, in doing so, they’re indirectly setting a much more democratically-dangerous precedent of ignoring the rights of what’s called the “fourth estate”:
The press.
What’s even worse is that, in order to save the life of this historic, consequential journalist (whose health is said to be in peril and declining daily), people are looking to have the President of the United States issue him a pardon.
That would remove the more than a decade’s weight (from the world’s superpower bearing down on him) from Assange’s shoulders. However…
…the U.S. President is as corrupt as any other politician.
Why?
Because, in America, bribery is legal.
Yes, bribery.
But we don’t call it bribery, though. We call it “corporate campaign donations” by way of its embarrassing solidification via the Supreme Court of the United States’ Citizens United ruling in 2010.
So, being pardoned by the corrupt head of the Executive Branch of the U.S. government is bad enough, but with a pardon also comes two severely problematic precedents:
A.) Admitting on the record, albeit under duress, that doing journalism, specifically whistleblower-based journalism, is a crime (which is pure insanity), making it nearly impossible to hold those in power accountable for their crimes done in the name of our government.
B.) Groveling to and begging the government (who has been relentlessly attacking you unconstitutionally and seemingly at the behest of oligarchs) for forgiveness.
It would be as though, in order for you not to be both prosecuted and locked up, your abuser forced you to come back to them and apologize to the world for you informing everyone that they were abusive.
Then, the abuser will benevolently grant you freedom, but only if you promise to never do “it” again.
TRANSLATION: We get to abuse you or anyone else we want and your job is to either sit there, cry, and take it, or to only speak positively about the abuse publicly.
Does that sound in any way healthy to you in any type of relationship?
Of course it doesn’t. However…
…that would be the unfortunate new precedent set for all journalists worldwide if Assange was offered and/or accepted a pardon.
The 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, broken.
The Solution to Stop “Them” from Destroying What’s Left of “Our” Republic
So as you can see, this ‘Assange Saga’ is not about a plethora of government documents being leaked or legal statutes being broken, nor does this take some Noam Chomsky-level of intellectual depth to comprehend.
This is about what is purported to be the simplest of simple, straight-forward, American ideals:
The 1st Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.
So, my solution to this Assange Saga is simple:
1.) The Justice Department of the U.S. Government puts out a statement that says they will no longer be seeking extradition or pursuing charges against Julian Assange due to his journalism being protected under the 1st Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America.
2.) The President of the United States verbally backs up the 2013 Justice Department’s Assange decision whenever asked about it and calls on the British Government to exercise leniency in Assange’s ‘failure to appear’ arrest and trial due to extenuating circumstances.
Protecting the 1st Amendment’s protections should be paramount, even at the unfortunate and utterly-horrific expense of an innocent person’s health and freedom.
So, pardoning someone who has committed no crime would be both beneath the spirit of America and its Constitution, and would set a dangerous legal precedent; giving the U.S. government virtually complete control over who can and can’t have legal access to and use of the 1st Amendment.
And, as you can terrifyingly-imagine, the long-term damage of that precedent would be absolutely catastrophic to an already end-stage capitalism-ridden Republic.
So, due to these potential un-American outcomes, the best course of action for the United States of America should be to simply and instantly call off the ‘dogs of war’ against Julian Assange, because, as the saying from the oxymoronically-named Right Guard commercials goes:
“Anything less would be uncivilized.”
Literally.
So, do you agree with my premise that Julian Assange should not be pardon, but, instead, simply have all of the charges levied against him dropped?
* Timeline Source: BBC
