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How ignorant British policy inflamed the war in Syria  | Middle East Eye

Posted by M. C. on June 2, 2020

In the first years of his presidency, Assad was warmly welcomed in London and even met the Queen. The British Syrian Society brought dozens of MPs to Syria before the war, and beyond official British visits, a glance at the society’s events page shows a who’s who of the UK’s top business, political and social elite.  

When the war began, however, the government was not interested in talking or listening, as Cameron appeared to be driven by a Blair-esque desire for righteous wars. Yet, MPs historically defeated Cameron and the Foreign Office’s push in 2013 to launch attacks on Syria, seeing a lack of strategy in the endgame. 

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/how-ignorant-british-policy-inflamed-war-syria

Kamal Alam

A 2017 BBC Panorama investigation showed how UK aid money was being diverted to terrorist funding in Syria without basic checks and balances. Jonathan Foreman’s book Aiding and Abetting previously argued that British aid in general has proved counterproductive because of a lack of proper research and application.

The recent MEE revelations about British propaganda efforts in Syria further undermine the UK’s rationale for its divisive policy, casting a grim light on its supposed neutrality in foreign conflicts.

Questioning UK policy

Several former British ambassadors to Syria were opposed to the UK’s foreign manoeuvring during the early days of the war, before all hell broke loose and Syria spiralled into a regional conflict. So what was the UK’s endgame? Was it to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, or just weaken him – or was it complete regime change?

The UK’s actions certainly have not contributed to stability. This is all the more alarming, as more than any other Western country, the UK had forged close ties with the Syrian government, with dozens of MPs visiting Syria before the war broke out. Many diplomats and military officials with knowledge, experience and insights into Syria have questioned the UK’s policy.

The UK has been obsessed with the ‘Assad must go’ notion, which has inhibited rational policy

Joshua Landis, a leading Syria expert in the US, wrote in 2011 that the Syrian government would likely survive, and that there would have to be a negotiated way out of the conflict.

Similarly, the late Patrick Seale, whose books on prewar Syria top the reading list on the Levant, argued that the opposition was not united and regime change would fail, citing the need for a negotiated path.

Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s adviser, Ed Husain, argued the same narrative in 2011. But these warnings were not heeded. Instead, the UK took an exceptionally hostile approach to Syria, without looking to the consequences.

Confused and hostile

The UK arguably led the US into going headstrong into Syria, even as Libya had begun to unravel. Former US President Barack Obama, in an Atlantic interview, launched an astonishing attack on former UK Prime Minister David Cameron, arguing that he took his eye off the ball without finishing the job in Libya, and then moved on to Syria, urging war there.

David Lesch, author of The New Lion of Damascus, has told me several times that after his meetings with both the UK and US leaderships in the early days of the war, it was the British who seemed confused and more hostile towards Damascus.

Former British Prime Minister David Cameron speaks at a Syria donors’ conference in central London in 2016 (AFP)
Former British Prime Minister David Cameron speaks at a Syria donors’ conference in central London in 2016 (AFP)

In the first years of his presidency, Assad was warmly welcomed in London and even met the Queen. The British Syrian Society brought dozens of MPs to Syria before the war, and beyond official British visits, a glance at the society’s events page shows a who’s who of the UK’s top business, political and social elite.

When the war began, however, the government was not interested in talking or listening, as Cameron appeared to be driven by a Blair-esque desire for righteous wars. Yet, MPs historically defeated Cameron and the Foreign Office’s push in 2013 to launch attacks on Syria, seeing a lack of strategy in the endgame.

Then and since, the UK has been obsessed with the “Assad must go” notion, which has inhibited rational policy. Anyone who suggests the opposite is declared an “Assadist” or regime supporter. The then chairman of the UK Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Crispin Blunt, had written in The Telegraph that removing Assad was not the solution. The chairman of the Defence Committee, Julian Lewis, also argued similarly on the BBC and the Guardian.

They clearly did not see an overall policy or strategy in Syria. If the two most fundamental oversight committees in Parliament were not convinced that says a lot.

‘Politics by other means’

Military leaders studying Clausewitz are taught that “war is a continuation of politics by other means”. Once the war had peaked, the UK’s former defence chief told CNN that it would be better to let Assad win and negotiate.

REVEALED: The British government’s covert propaganda campaign in Syria

Read More »

Other leading generals, including Sir Simon Mayall, a former UK top military adviser in the Middle East, have suggested that UK policy was hampered by “wishful thinking” and ignorance. Former army chief General Richard Dannatt said the solution lay in working with Assad to talk and end the war.

Two decorated former heads of British special forces, Jonathan Shaw and John Holmes, both told me previously how wrong the UK had been with regards to Syria. Former British ambassador Sir Roger Tomkys also told me that the UK was wrong in jumping the gun to oust Assad, and three former ambassadors have voiced publicly their opposition as well.

The UK’s support of clandestine groups that were terrorists, coupled with propaganda support to spread divisions and hatred, inflamed the war in Syria. There has never been a proper strategy; far from it.

Be seeing you

 

 

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The Epitome of Rioting Irony and Ignorance in One Tweet

Posted by M. C. on June 2, 2020

And that is what happens when you openly encourage violence against others. 

I suspect the career of Chris Martin Palmer is now over. 

If it’s not, it should be.

This is the ESPN mindset. Why is ESPN still in existence?

https://www.thestreet.com/mishtalk/economics/the-epitome-of-rioting-irony-and-ignorance-in-one-tweet

Mish

Mish

ESPN NBA Reporter Chris Martin Palmer made a fool out of himself with a pair of Tweets, one of which exploded in his face.
My how things change when it is your gated community that is being burnt down.

Palmer deleted his Tweet but here is his “Burn that s**t down. Burn it all down.” Tweet Archive.

Comments Pour In

A lot of people have been affected and lives lost, but we need to all remember… Chris Palmer can’t get his Starbucks today.

More Replies to Palmer

Replies to Palmer

Amazing Irony

Palmer incites looters to burn things down just as long as they stay away from his gated community.

But they didn’t.

And that is what happens when you openly encourage violence against others.

I suspect the career of Chris Martin Palmer is now over.

If it’s not, it should be.

Mish

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Jon Rappoport’s Blog « Contact Tracing

Posted by M. C. on June 2, 2020

https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/
“Hi Hank. So glad your deli is
finally open. I’ll have the Fauci baloney on rye with apocalypse sauce
and extra Birx pickles on the side…you know, the sandwich with the tiny
microchip in it…”

by Jon Rappoport

So I chose a state at random and started to look at their rollout of
contact tracing. The first group I found—what were they? A non-profit,
a government agency, a bunch of nameless robots with cushy jobs pulling
down secure paychecks for the rest of their lives?

Finally, on their site, way down on a page, I saw references to a
CEO. They’re a company. A business. Their new money maker is hiring,
training, and launching contact tracers.

They’re collaborating with two other groups I’ve never heard of, and
all three groups are plugged into state public health officials.

It’s as if these people want to conceal themselves, or perhaps more
accurately, distance themselves from the population, in their “vital
work.”

“Thanks for getting in touch with your question, Mr. Citizen.
Actually, that contact tracing issue comes under the CVDR. You can
contact them at their office. They may in turn refer you to the BGTD or
the GKTH2V…”

Vagueness is the cardinal feature of the whole contact tracing
program. Intentionally so. Words like “could” and “may” show up at key
junctures. We could do this, we may do that.

For example, when some pleasant android of the State shows up at your
home and knocks on the door, because you shopped at a hole-in- the-wall
hardware store where an employee was later found to be “positive for,”
or “infected by,” or “sick from” (which one is it?) the virus, and this
contact tracer asks you about your health, and asks you to get tested,
what happens if you say NO?

Are you put into isolation in your home, alone? For 10 days?
Fourteen days? Do other people in the home have to leave? Do you have
to leave? Do they take you to some fleabag hotel prison and put you in a
room and deny you visitors? If so, for how long? Suppose, while in
the fleabag, you still refuse to get tested? Do they keep you there for
a year? The rest of your life? Suppose you start coughing in the
middle of the night because the room is full of mold? Do they break in
and hold you down and take a swab and test it and then ship you with
your brand new false-positive result to a hospital and put you on a
ventilator? Meanwhile, are your children sent to live with relatives,
or are they hustled into foster care? And if the vaccine has been
approved, do they shoot you with it whether you consent or refuse? If
they let you refuse, do they extend your stay at the fleabag hotel? For
how long?

State governors are running the following psyop: “Yes, we’re opening
up the economy, but this is CONTINGENT on doing more and more contact
tracing and testing.” On a national level, Pelosi tried to make that
point the other day, but her Thorazine kept kicking in and caused gaps
in her speech. Finally, she managed to remember—“It’s the three t’s;
tracing, testing, and treatment.” Really. She and Joe Biden should run
together on the Mental Lapse ticket in the fall.

Go ahead. Read the CDC guidelines on contact tracing. Read HR 6666
and the new Hero Bill. Try to figure out EXACTLY how the tracing
program works. Count how many holes there are in the Swiss Cheese.

The bottom line is: they’ll do what they can get away with. They’ll make up reasons for doing it.

They’ll tap into every latent little fascist in your community and
put them to work tracing and snitching and testing and shooting up as
many people as possible. Including you.

“Hi, Jolene. What are you doing here? I thought you were cleaning
teeth at Dr. Homunculus’ office? What? You’re a contact tracer now?
It’s not enough to pretend you’re a Hell’s Angel chick on weekends?
You’re now an agent of the State? What’s that patch on your sleeve?
Didn’t the Stasi wear that in East Germany?”

In India, the government has released a contact tracing app. It’s
voluntary and mandatory. In “containment areas,” you have to have it.
Apparently, it’s been accepted on a hundred million cell phones so far.
Well, it would be. Don’t leave home without it. Otherwise, you can’t
gain access to work, or stores. India is chasing China for
most-repressive-government awards.

Of course, it’s happening in America, too. “We’d love to get you on
board. Install our new app and let us spy on you 24/7. It’s fun.
We’re all in this spying together. It’s Heaven on Earth. By the way,
your employer won’t let you work at the office without the app.”

Here, from the CDC, are a few statements about contact tracing.

“Based on our current knowledge, a close contact is someone who was
within 6 feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes starting
from 48 hours before illness onset until the time the patient is
isolated. They should stay home, maintain social distancing, and
self-monitor until 14 days from the last date of exposure.”

The precision is breathtaking, isn’t it? And they’re talking about
“close contacts.” Do the same rules apply to “ordinary contacts?”
They’re really going to try to estimate the “48 hours before” and the
“15 minutes?” Does the contact who maintains social distancing at home
stay at least six feet away from other family members at all times for
14 days? The answer: yes. Are you kidding?

“Contacts are encouraged to stay home and maintain social distance
from others (at least 6 feet) until 14 days after their last exposure,
in case they also become ill. They should monitor themselves by checking
their temperature twice daily and watching for cough or shortness of
breath [hopefully inducing fear and consequent illness]. To the extent
possible, public health staff should check in with contacts to make sure
they are self-monitoring and have not developed symptoms. Contacts who
develop symptoms should promptly isolate themselves and notify public
health staff. They should be promptly evaluated for infection and for
the need for medical care.”

So, again…just because you came in contact with someone who is
“infected,” you need to self-isolate at home, more than six feet apart
from family members, for 14 days? Yes.

“If possible, contacts should be asked to voluntarily stay home,
monitor themselves, and maintain social distancing from others.
However, health departments have the authority to issue legal orders of
quarantine, should the situation warrant that measure.”

Wait. What’s the difference between self-isolating at home and
quarantine? Well, quarantine must mean everyone except “the contact”
clears out of the house and stays elsewhere; or the contact is taken
from the house and put in a “facility.”

And under what circumstances would quarantine be ordered? Let’s see.
Refusal to get tested. Refusal to maintain the six-feet rule.
Refusal to stay home. Refusal to have a cell phone with the tracing app
installed. Refusal to take the vaccine. That would be my surmise.

Frankly, I prefer a Mussolini approach, if you’re going to install contact tracing:

“Listen up, everyone. The researchers never used proper procedures
to prove a new virus existed in the first place. That, and the fact
that the diagnostic tests churn out false positives like Niagara Falls
in the rainy season, make all case numbers and death numbers
meaningless. The whole COVID narrative is a fairy tale. No need for
masks, gloves, social distancing, or lockdowns. Get it? But we want to
know everything about you 24/7, so we’re doing contact tracing. This
is a police state. Cooperate, or pay the price.”

Contact tracing is just the forward edge of a MUCH larger program of surveillance.

In his devastating article, “The Brave New World of Bill Gates and Big Telecom,”
May 8, 2020, Robert F Kennedy, Jr. writes: “Suppose that computers
discover your [anti-lockdown] beach trip by tracking your movements
using a stream of information from your cell phone, your car, your GPS,
facial recognition technology integrated with real-time surveillance
from satellites, mounted cameras, and implanted chips. Desk-bound
prosecutors or robots will notify you of your violation by text while
simultaneously withdrawing your $1,000 penalty in cryptocurrency from
your payroll account. Welcome to Bill Gates’ America. It’s right around
the corner.”

“Recently, Bill Gates announced his financial support for a $1
billion plan to blanket Earth in video surveillance satellites. The
company, EarthNow, will launch 500 satellites to live-stream monitor
almost every ‘corner’ of the Earth, providing instantaneous video
feedback with only a one-second delay. According to Wikipedia, the
company expects its customers to include ‘governments and large
enterprises.’ 5G Antennas¬¬¬ deploying a vast array of ground-based 5G
spy antennas. Through his Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Gates
purchased 5.3 million Crown Castle shares currently worth a billion
dollars. The Foundation’s second-largest tech holding after Microsoft,
Crown Castle owns 5G infrastructure in every major U.S. market. It
operates and leases more than 40,000 cell towers, 65,000 small cell
nodes which are the central infrastructure for 5G and 75,000 route miles
of fiber to every major U.S. market that, instead of going to your
home, providing you safe, fast, wired internet, has been confiscated to
connect 5G cell towers.”

“Corporations will use Gates’ 5G surveillance system to sell products
and escalate AI capacity. Governments will use it to transition the
globe to a totalitarian singularity more despotic than Orwell ever
imagined. Silicon Valley titans like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and
Google’s Chief Engineer Ray Kurzweil talk longingly of ‘transhumanism,’
the process by which humanity will transition to become part-human,
part-machine via genetic engineering and surgical implants.”

“Bill Gates is investing heavily to accelerate this altered reality.
His ambition to tag us all with injected subdermal vaccine data chips
seems to be merely a steppingstone toward an all-encompassing
surveillance state.”

“…Microsoft has patented a sinister technology that utilizes
implanted sensors to monitor body and brain activity. It will reward
compliant humans with crypto currency payments when they perform
assigned activities.”

“The patent, WO [2020] 060606 has gained notoriety and the nickname
‘World Order 2020 666.’ Microsoft describes this device as a ‘Crypto
Currency System’ and explains that it is ‘capable of’ using body
activity data to mine bitcoin in response to compliance with assigned
tasks. People who agree to install the Microsoft harmful wireless
sensors will receive periodic ‘duty’ smart phone instructions to watch a
certain advertisement, listen to a specific song, walk down a specific
grocery store aisle, or to take a certain vaccine. This chip will
collect data from embedded sensors that monitor brain waves, blood flow,
and other body reactions. The system will transfer cryptocurrency into
the subject’s account after completion of the assigned task…”

Contact tracing? It’s a euphemism for Updated Slavery.

In the same way, Google and Facebook were just euphemisms for National Security Agency (NSA) Worldwide.

Memo to police departments everywhere: You know how sensitive and
finicky you are about private citizens videotaping you while you’re on
the job? Well, imagine how a few billion people are beginning to feel
about being surveilled inside and out, all the time. Take a look into
the immediate future. Your work is going to get a lot harder.

I had a dream the other night. As a 100-year-old crone, after
several plastic surgeries, fugitive Tony Fauci was sitting on his
country porch, in an undisclosed location, musing about the long-gone
days when he was king of the hill.

A dusty car pulled up in his driveway. A little fascist contact tracer stepped out and approached him.

“Hello, sir,” the tracer said. “Just here to check your body temperature…what’s that noise?”

“Oh,” Fauci said, “some old-school equipment cranking up. Pals of
mine at…installed it. You know, video cameras, movement sensors, remote
fever guns. They’re checking your temp right now. Laser probes are
taking a readout of your brain waves, blood flow, adrenaline levels.
That sort of thing.”

Fauci glances at his cell phone. “I see you bought two porn site
memberships on the Dark Web last week. Your wife is filing for divorce.
Oh…better watch out. Her lawyer is a tiger. And that Walmart
robbery? The cops have you down as a person of interest. Now what was
it you wanted?”

The tracer tries to stand his ground. But as he looks around, he
spots a group of men standing at the edge of the woods looking at him.
“Who are they?” he says.

“Some locals,” Fauci says. “They set fires in certain key locations.”

“What? What the hell does that mean?”

Fauci shrugs. “You’d have to ask them. Back in the day, they were
dispossessed during the COVID lockdown. They didn’t like that. I hear
rumors.”

“What rumors?”

“They’ve found a way to reverse-vector 5G. They send it back where it came from.”

Agitated—“Where did it come from?”

“Who knows? But I hear wherever that is, it doesn’t exist anymore.
Don’t pay any attention to me. I’m just an old man. Out of the loop
for long time.”

The tracer turns around and stumbles back to his car.

When he’s gone, another man steps out of the house and sits down next
to Fauci. He has a long beard. He’s wearing a baseball cap pulled
down low, and shades.

It’s Bill Gates.

Fauci says, “I gave you a few days of sanctuary, Bill, because I
needed company. But I think it’s time you took off. It’s not safe for
you, and it wouldn’t be safe for me, if a few of the good old boys in
the neighborhood found out you’re here. Know what I mean?”

Bill nods. “I had it going for a while,” he says. “I really thought we could…but then…”

“Face it, Bill. You didn’t think it through. Not far enough. Your
projections were based on incomplete data. About people. About how
much surveillance they would stand for. About how many brain-damaged
kids from your vaccines they would allow before they revolted…”

“But why? Why would I make such obvious mistakes?”

“Maybe it’s a genetic flaw in you, Bill. You should think about getting that fixed.”

Be seeing you

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That Change You Requested…? – Kunstler

Posted by M. C. on June 2, 2020

Hungry for change? You won’t have to wait long. This society may be unrecognizable in a few months. For one thing, there’s a good chance that the current violence in the streets won’t blow over as it has before.

https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/that-change-you-requested/

James Howard Kunstler

All the previous incidents of white cops killing blacks were just too ambiguous to seal the deal. Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri (a murky business); Tamir Rice in Cleveland (waving the BB gun that looked like a .45 automatic); Trayvon Martin (his killer George Zimmerman was not a cop and was not “white”); Eric Garner, Staten Island (black policewoman sergeant on the scene didn’t stop it); Philando Castile, Minneapolis (the cop was Hispanic and the vic had a gun). Even the recent February killing of jogger Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia, had some sketchy elements (did Arbery try to seize the shotgun?) — YouTube has scrubbed the video (?) — and then it took months for the two white suspects (not cops) to be arrested.

The George Floyd killing had none of those weaknesses. Plus, the video presented a pretty much universal image of oppression: a man with his knee on another man’s neck. Didn’t that say it all?  You didn’t need a Bob Dylan song to explain it. The Minneapolis police dithered for four days before charging policeman Derek Chauvin with Murder 3 (unpremeditated, but with reckless disregard for human life). The three other cops on the scene who stupidly stood by doing nothing have yet to be charged. Cut it, print it, and cue the mobs.

The nation was already reeling from the weird twelve-week Covid-19 lockdown of everyday life and the economic havoc it brought to careers, businesses, and incomes. In Minnesota, the stay-at-home order was just lifted on May 17, but bars and restaurants were still closed until June. Memorial Day, May 25, was one of the first really balmy days of mid-spring, 78 degrees. People were out-and-about, perhaps even feeling frisky after weeks of dreary seclusion. So, once the video of George Floyd’s death got out, the script was set: take it to the streets!

Few Americans were unsympathetic to the protest marches that followed. Remorse, censure, and tears flowed from every official portal, from the mouth and eyes of every political figure in the land. The tableau of Officer Chauvin’s knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck was readymade for statuary. Indeed, there are probably dozens of statues extant in the world of just such a scene expressing one people’s oppression over another. And yet the public sentiments early-on after the George Floyd killing had a stale, ceremonial flavor: The people demand change! End systemic racism! No justice, no peace! How many times have we seen this movie?

What is changing — and suddenly — is that now it’s not just black people who struggle to thrive in the USA, but everybody else of any ethnic group who is not a hedge fund veep, an employee of BlackRock Financial, or a K-Street lobbyist — and even those privileged characters may find themselves in reduced circumstances before long. The prospects of young adults look grimmest of all. They face an economy so disordered that hardly anyone can find something to do that pays enough to support the basics of life, on top of being swindled by the false promises of higher education and the money-lending racket that animates it.

So, it’s not surprising that, when night falls, the demons come out. Things get smashed up and burned down. And all that after being cooped up for weeks on end in the name of an illness that mostly kills people in nursing homes. Ugly as the ANTIFA movement is, it’s exactly what you get when young people realize their future has been stolen from them. Or, more literally, when they are idle and broke and see fabulous wealth all around them in the banks’ glass skyscrapers, and the car showrooms, and the pageants of celebrity fame and fortune on the boob tube. They are extras in a new movie called The Fourth Turning Meets the Long Emergency but they may not know it.

Hungry for change? You won’t have to wait long. This society may be unrecognizable in a few months. For one thing, there’s a good chance that the current violence in the streets won’t blow over as it has before. There hasn’t been such sudden, massive unemployment before, not even in the Great Depression — and we’re not even the same country that went through that rough episode. Just about every arrangement in contemporary life is on-the-rocks one way or another. Big business, small business, show business… it’s all cratering. The great big secret behind all that is not that capitalism failed; it’s that the capital in capitalism isn’t really there anymore, at least not in the amounts that mere appearances like stock valuations suggest. We squandered it, and now our institutions are straining mightily to pretend that “printing” money is the same as capital. (It’s just more debt.) Note, the stock markets are up this morning at the open! Go figure….

Change? We’re getting it good and hard, and not at a rate we were prepared for. It’s hugely disorienting. It produces friction, heat, and light, which easily becomes violence. There’s, for sure, plenty we can do to make new arrangements for American life without becoming communists or Nazis, but a lot of activities have to fail before we see how that could work. The overburden of obsolete complexity is crushing us, like Derek Chauvin’s knee on George Floyd’s neck. They were both, in their way, common men, caught in the maelstrom of metaphor. That proverbial long, hot summer we’ve heard about for so long…? It’s here.

Be seeing you

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I’m Not Watching the Minnesota Movie – American Thinker

Posted by M. C. on June 2, 2020

After Brown’s death in August 2014, the trend sharply reversed itself.  In 2015, the murder rate rose nearly 11 percent, its greatest one-year jump in a half-century.  In 2016, the trend continued with an 8.5-percent increase over the year before.  What this means is that nearly three thousand more Americans were murdered in 2016 than in 2014, an estimated eighteen hundred of them black.  After Donald Trump took office, the murder rate began to decline once again.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/05/im_not_watching_the_minnesota_movie.html

By Jack Cashill

I have not watched any of the videos out of Minneapolis or listened to any of the commentary.  I have not watched because I resent having to watch only one genre over and over again.  This is the genre in which a white antagonist, presumed guilty at the outset, kills or injures a black protagonist, presumed innocent.

More than 15,000 Americans were murdered in 2019, but no movies for national release were made about blacks killing blacks, the most common scenario.  Nor were any made about blacks killing whites, Hispanics, or Asians.  In fact, these movies are generally suppressed.

No, only one genre of movie is allowed.  In recent years, we have seen the Trayvon movie; the Ferguson movie; the Baltimore movie; and, for comic relief, the Jussie Smollett movie among others.  The most lethal of the movies was the one filmed in Ferguson.  The most dishonest one was the Trayvon movie, filmed on location in Florida.

In 2019, in his film and book The Trayvon Hoax, filmmaker Joel Gilbert proved beyond any doubt that the State of Florida’s star witness in its murder case against George Zimmerman, Rachel Jeantel, was an imposter.  Gilbert enlisted a private investigator, as well as two prominent handwriting analysts, an audio expert, and a forensic DNA lab.  After poring through page after page of text messages, phone calls, tweets, Facebook messages, high school yearbooks, and crime reports, Gilbert was able to find the real “phone witness,” a then-sixteen-year-old Haitian-American hottie Trayvon knew as “Diamond.”  Diamond had the good sense not to regurgitate the media’s false narrative under oath.

A Pulitzer awaited the intrepid reporter who followed Gilbert’s leads, but the media were not about to reshoot this movie.  Not a journalist could be bothered — not in New York, not in Orlando, not even in Miami.  Only twelve minutes elapsed from the time Gilbert sent an email to the Miami Herald’s managing editor asking for his help to the time Gilbert was told, “Thanks for reaching out.  We are going to pass.”  The ensuing email flurry from the Herald newsroom quickly built to Category 5 level contempt, and this was Miami, Trayvon’s home.

The fact that Trayvon’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, undeniably at the heart of the conspiracy, was running for county commissioner did not pique the media’s interest.  Nor did the fact that her co-conspirator, attorney Benjamin Crump, has gone on to star in several subsequent movies, including Minneapolis.

In Ferguson, only the media were corrupt.  Not too long after Michael Brown was shot, I spent an afternoon with the officer involved in the shooting, Darren Wilson, pushing his infant daughter in her swing, reviewing his past, and assessing his future.  He had no job and no prospect of getting a job, certainly not in the St. Louis area, at least not as a police officer.  Were it not for the courage of St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch, a Democrat, Wilson suspected he would be in prison.  McCulloch’s grand jury introduced too much legitimate eyewitness testimony for the DOJ to ignore.  Grateful Democrats responded by defeating McCulloch in the next primary.

The cops got the picture. They knew they too could face termination, lawsuits, criminal charges, and death threats, all driven by the mandates of mob justice.  They knew, as well, that the political class, from President Barack Obama on down, would gladly throw them to the wolves to preserve the peace.

Nationwide, but especially in cities where rioting followed lethal police-citizen encounters, cops instinctively began to pull back from actively policing black neighborhoods.  Sensing opportunity, criminals moved into the void.  Attorney and Manhattan Institute fellow Heather Mac Donald has dubbed this phenomenon the “Ferguson Effect.”

Observed Mac Donald in a 2016 Washington Post column, “Arrests, summonses and pedestrian stops were dropping in many cities, where data on such police activity were available.  Arrests in St. Louis City and County, for example, fell by a third after the shooting of Michael Brown.  Misdemeanor drug arrests fell by two-thirds in Baltimore through November 2015.”

At an emergency session of police chiefs held a year after the Ferguson incident, Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel explained the phenomenon to Attorney General Loretta Lynch.  “[Cops] don’t want to be a news story themselves,” said Emanuel.  “They don’t want their career ended early, and it’s having an impact.”

The impact was deadly and undeniable.  According to FBI data, the murder rate in the United States declined steadily from 2006 to 2014 except for a minor blip in 2012.  As a result, there were three thousand or so fewer murders in 2014 than in 2006.

After Brown’s death in August 2014, the trend sharply reversed itself.  In 2015, the murder rate rose nearly 11 percent, its greatest one-year jump in a half-century.  In 2016, the trend continued with an 8.5-percent increase over the year before.  What this means is that nearly three thousand more Americans were murdered in 2016 than in 2014, an estimated eighteen hundred of them black.  After Donald Trump took office, the murder rate began to decline once again.

Missouri proved particularly vulnerable.  There, the spike began almost immediately after the August 2014 shooting in Ferguson.  As a result, St. Louis had the highest murder rate in the nation in 2014, a dubious honor it held through 2017.  Statewide, the murder rate nearly doubled from 2014 to 2017, and there was no good explanation for the surge in Missouri or nationwide other than the “Ferguson effect.”

I’m sorry George Floyd died in Minneapolis.  He may well be as innocent and the cop as guilty as everyone says, but until the media try to undo the damage created in Florida and in Ferguson, I have no interest in helping them create a “Minneapolis Effect.”

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Just To Be Clear — The Covid-19 Vaccine Will Be Rigorously Tested – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on June 2, 2020

Just like CDC contaminated COVID test kits.

Don’t be intimidated by the philosophically impoverished. Their bluster is their only tool against you.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/06/allan-stevo/just-to-be-clear-the-covid-19-vaccine-will-be-rigorously-tested/

By

Some people claim that the Covid-19 vaccine will not be rigorously tested. That’s a lie.

I worked for a software company once that didn’t test its code in a testing environment. They tested their code “in production.” That worked until it didn’t. Everything fell apart. Customers lost millions. It was the most awful product release I’ve ever witnessed.

Similarly, the Covid-19 vaccine will be tested in production. Notable examples come to mind when people talk about testing vaccines in production.

1955 — Cutter Labs Polio Vaccine Catastrophe 

As reported in the Journal of The Royal Society of Medicine “In April 1955 more than 200,000 children in five Western and mid-Western USA states received a polio vaccine in which the process of inactivating the live virus proved to be defective. Within days there were reports of paralysis and within a month the first mass vaccination programme against polio had to be abandoned. Subsequent investigations revealed that the vaccine, manufactured by the California-based family firm of Cutter Laboratories, had caused 40,000 cases of polio, leaving 200 children with varying degrees of paralysis and killing 10.”

1955-1970 — Japanese SMON “Epidemic”

Smithsonian Magazine recalls  the 1955-1970 epidemic of subacute myelo-optic neuropathy (SMON), which mystified and terrorized many, though ultimately proving to be medically induced. While not due to a vaccine, the concern is similar. Examples of “cure as cause,” are legion. Johns Hopkins, in a 2016 published study, pointed to medical intervention as the third leading cause of death over an eight year period. At 250,000 deaths per year, medical error surpasses the CDC reported third leading cause of death — respiratory diseases, which claim 150,000 Americans a year. The Johns Hopkins team claimed the CDC does not effectively collect data on medical error.

1976 — Untested Swine Flu Vaccine  

The 1976 and 2009 stories of untested vaccines offer detailed lessons for our era in their foolhardy similarity.

“This is a story about one time over 40 years ago when poor decision-making on the part of the government led to the unnecessary vaccination of about 45 million citizens,” reports Smithsonian Magazine.

There was a novel form of the flu that killed a US solder in February 1976. The flu that was expected that fall was widely reported to be an outbreak unlike anything seen since the 1918 Spanish Flu.

Smithsonian Magazine goes further “To avoid an epidemic, the CDC believed, at least 80 percent of the United States population would need to be vaccinated. When they asked Congress for the money to do it, politicians jumped on the potential good press of saving their constituents from the plague.”

“The World Health Organization adopted more of a wait-and-see attitude to the virus… They eventually found that the strain of flu that year was not a repeat or escalation of the 1918 flu, but ‘the U.S. government was unstoppable.’”

President Ford was up for re-election that fall and something had to be done. A Salon report from 2009, cautioning President Obama against mass vaccination continues with the story:

“1976 was the year of the U.S. Bicentennial. 1976 was a presidential election year. 1976 was two years after Watergate caused Nixon’s resignation, and one year after the fall of Saigon. The U.S. government, both Republicans and Democrats, had never been held in such low esteem. Practically every elected official felt an overwhelming itch that patriotic year to do something to get the public thinking of them as good guys again. A swine flu pandemic was an opportunity on a plate. What better way to get into the good graces of the voters than to save them from a plague?

“Knowing the Republican president would not, could not veto a bill he requested, the Democratically controlled House attached $1.8 billion dollars in welfare and environmental spending to the flu bill.

“The 1976 to 1977 flu season was the most flu-free since records had been kept; a condition that was apparently unrelated to the vaccination program. The Great Swine Flu Epidemic of 1976 never took place.”

Once informative on the topic of caution around inherently risky medical intervention such as needless vaccines, Salon, The New York Times, and NPR have all fallen silent, as mass vaccination campaigns have mystifyingly become yet another liberal shibboleth.

2009 — Untested Swine Flu Vaccine 

As reported by Buzzfeed, and not too many other outlets, “Dozens of NHS workers are fighting for compensation after developing narcolepsy from a swine flu vaccine that was rushed into service without the usual testing when the disease spread across the globe in 2009. They say it has destroyed their careers and their health.”

It’s a story of government employees naively trusting that everything would be okay if they received a vaccine that had been rushed through testing.

Tested in Production — Taking A Lesson From Other Industries 

Since the Covid-19 vaccine will be tested in production, with very little preliminary testing, it’s worth taking lessons from other industries that have entities that regularly test in production in order to determine how best to effect this end goal.

Best Practices for Testing In Production — E-mail Communication 

When testing in production, a good feedback loop is needed. A direct email address to the manufacturer, ideally read daily by all members of the team that developed the product is helpful.

These emails can’t be filtered by customer service, marketing, or the product team. That risks only a few emails being sent along. The data from these emails can’t be compiled into a document and passed along. They can’t be filtered through a doctor that determines if the data is useful. They can’t be filtered through some obscure government compensation program.

All raw data needs to get to all the right people as quickly as possible, if critical infrastructure is going to be tested in production.

In such a situation, where a vaccine is tested in production, the recipient needs to be handed a piece of paper that says the equivalent of “If ANYTHING seems different, e-mail this address immediately.” Oversampling must be preferenced over undersampling.

If there is going to be success in an effort to test in production, then as much as possible, the research and product teams who developed the vaccine and their executive leadership team need to receive the email of the mother crying at 2 a.m. over her suddenly unhealthy baby, or the son trying to figure out why his mother suddenly took a turn for the worse 11 hours after getting a vaccine.

Best Practices For Testing In Production — Telephone Communication  

Better than an email, because sometimes written words can’t convey what a voice can, is a cell phone number answered by someone on that team 24-7.

We can’t have the kind of feedback loop we have now around vaccines and expect a test in production to work. There has to be a little more skin in the game before a vaccine is tested in production.

Best Practices For Testing In Production — Full Disclosure, Clearly Presented   

There has to be full disclosure and informed consent along the lines of “We don’t know how well, if at all, this vaccine works, and we don’t know how safe, if at all, this vaccine is. You may be dead tomorrow because of this vaccine. This vaccine may disable you for life. We really don’t know.”

It must be plain language. Not legalese. It would be best if it were written by a pipe fitter or a stevedore during his lunch break. It should seek to be about as honest and direct as the European tobacco carton warnings showing photos of tumor-filled lungs and gum cancer lesions.

The Key To Achieving The Manhattan Project Of Vaccines 

It can be taken a step further if those involved in the vaccine manufacture process want to get feedback from the vaccine as quickly as possible and to have as safe and effective of a vaccine as possible, a “Manhattan Project” of vaccines, as some have suggested.

It’s not in the development that the Manhattan Project of vaccines becomes helpful, it’s in the rollout, in the introduction, in the feedback loop, in the follow through. Responsibility, however, is anathema in our era. Drug manufactures have sizable teams dedicated to the mitigation of risk, and the socialization of harm. These are modern-sounding, alternate terms for the age-old concept of “avoiding responsibility.” The responsibility avoidance teams at vaccine manufacturers often rival the size of those teams that help develop the product and those who help in the follow through with the product.

Development work may include patient sampling, virus isolation, virus characterization, standardizing, manufacturing, releasing, manufacture scale up, validation, safety, efficacy, monitoring of adverse events, and regulatory review and approval. Responsibility avoidance might include legal, marketing, lobbying, post-vaccination trials, medical liability insurance, product liability, post-marketing, and scheduling.

Since avoiding responsibility is so written into the DNA of large corporations, and large institutions, fresh ideas like those mentioned in this paper are needed if a Manhattan Project of vaccines is to make any headway.

To expand that thinking, at the time of vaccination with the untested vaccines, if a patient has a problem, in addition to an email address, the following can be provided to a patient in order to facilitate the feedback loop: the personal cell phone, spouse’s personal cell phone, home address, and vacation home address of all executives, government officials, spokespersons, and media sources who endorse the vaccine should be provided to a patient both on a handout and in electronic form.

The Manhattan Project Of Vaccine Safety  Read the rest of this entry »

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Do Conservatives Really Believe Than Unconstitutional Law Is No Law? – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on June 2, 2020

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/06/laurence-m-vance/do-conservatives-really-believe-that-an-unconstitutional-law-is-no-law/

By

I see that all manner of conservatives are saying in response to the draconian lockdowns across the country that an unconstitutional law is no law. They are praising district attorneys, sheriffs, and local police for saying that they won’t enforce the decrees of state governors. Some conservatives are advocating rebellion and civil disobedience. Their focus, of course, is mainly on states with Democratic governors. But it is typical of conservatives not to criticize Republicans too much.

But do conservatives really believe that an unconstitutional law is no law? Do they really believe that district attorneys, sheriffs, and local police should not enforce unconstitutional laws?

Of course they don’t.

Now, I am glad to see that conservatives are actually talking about civil liberties. But the greatest violation of civil liberties, private property, individual liberty, personal freedom, and free enterprise is the federal government’s war on drugs.

Under federal law—

Possession of marijuana is punishable by up to one year in jail and a minimum fine of $1,000 for a first conviction. For a second conviction, the penalties increase to a 15-day mandatory minimum sentence with a maximum of two years in prison and a fine of up to $2,500. Subsequent convictions carry a 90-day mandatory minimum sentence and a maximum of up to three years in prison and a fine of up to $5,000.

And that is just possession.

Manufacture or distribution carries tougher penalties. The sale of paraphernalia is punishable by up to three years in prison. And “the sentence of death can be carried out on a defendant who has been found guilty of manufacturing, importing or distributing a controlled substance if the act was committed as part of a continuing criminal enterprise.”

And that is just marijuana.

Woe unto the American who possesses, manufactures, or distributes cocaine, heroin, meth, or fentanyl.

Drug laws are certainly unconstitutional laws.

Does the Constitution authorize the national government to regulate, criminalize, or prohibit the manufacture, sale, or use of any drug?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to intrude itself into the personal eating, drinking, or smoking habits of Americans?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to restrict or monitor any harmful or mood-altering substances that any American wants to consume?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to have a drug war?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to concern itself with the nature and quantity of any substance Americans inhale or otherwise take into their body?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government regulate, monitor, or restrict the consumption, medical, or recreational habits of Americans?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to have an Office of National Drug Control Policy?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to have a Drug Enforcement Administration?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to have a drug czar?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to have a Controlled Substances Act?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to have a Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to have a National Survey on Drug Use and Health?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to have a Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to have any federal crimes other than treason, piracy, and counterfeiting?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to have a National Drug Control Strategy?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to institute drug prohibition without a constitutional amendment?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to have a Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to wage war on a plant?

Does the Constitution authorize the federal government to ban anything?

Of course it doesn’t.

Since an unconstitutional law is no law, shouldn’t conservatives be opposed root and branch to the federal government’s war on drugs instead of being its biggest supporters?

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Rioting: Everyone Has Lost Their Minds – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on June 2, 2020

Somehow we’ve come to live in a world in which obvious moral truths are now expressions of right-wing extremism.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/06/thomas-woods/rioting-everyone-has-lost-their-minds/

By

From the Tom Woods Letter:

Some libertarians tell me: there’s no such thing as left and right; this is a made-up distinction meant to divide us.

Not so, and I can prove it.

I can tell the difference with one question.

“Are rioting and looting wrong?”

One side will say yes. The other will give you a speech. Works every time.

(Michael Malice has a similarly formulated question, unrelated to riots, which inspired mine.)

Remember how we were supposed to be terrified of three dozen right-wing extremists with no funding and no foothold in media, entertainment, or academia? And the left were just “anti-fascist” activists innocently pursuing justice?

Seems pretty dumb today, doesn’t it?

(It seemed pretty dumb then, too.)

The left — and plenty of libertarians, to their profound shame — can’t seem to decide between two ways they want to spin what is currently happening:

(1) Riots are the language of the unheard, and we should try to understand people participating in them even if we (rather tepidly) disapprove.

(2) It’s outside agitators spurring the riots, so we shouldn’t blame the peaceful protestors.

But if riots are basically understandable, why this rush to assure me that they’re being instigated by outsiders? Didn’t you just tell me this is an understandable if unfortunate display by the unheard? Pick one!

I’ve devoted numerous episodes of the Tom Woods Show to the problems with police, and I’ll be linking them all on one page when tomorrow’s episode (#1664) with Eric July comes out.

The police are a monopoly with all the drawbacks we normally admit are the result of monopolies.

I’ve never understood the conservative devotion to the police. They’re for “limited government” and claim to detest 90+% of what the state commands. But the enforcement arm of the state and its commands? Why, that’s awesome and to be saluted!

And in tomorrow’s episode we’re going to list nine specific things that would make a serious dent in police misconduct of all kinds, from the trivial to the gruesome.

But not for a second am I going to look for reasons that terrorizing people and destroying unrelated property is in any way an understandable response to a political grievance, or put a “but” in my statement — as in, “Looting is bad, but….”

I am hearing plenty of this: look, sure, it’s bad that some people are destroying businesses and stealing what other people worked for, but they’re really angry. On some level you have to sympathize with them.

Nope. I don’t.

“I have suffered; therefore, other innocents should suffer” — which of the saints lived by such a monstrous code?

If your child is mistreated and takes his frustration out on my child by randomly beating the hell out of him, I will not gaslight my child by explaining that what happened is sort of understandable on some level.

Screw that.

Somehow we’ve come to live in a world in which obvious moral truths are now expressions of right-wing extremism.

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The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity : Listen to the Doctors, End the Lockdowns

Posted by M. C. on June 2, 2020

The lesson of the unnecessary lockdowns is clear: Government bureaucrats and politicians, even the media’s beloved Dr. Fauci, must be stripped of the ability to infringe on our liberty and prosperity.

http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2020/june/01/listen-to-the-doctors-end-the-lockdowns/

Written by Ron Paul

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Six hundred physicians recently signed a letter to President Trump calling for an end to the coronavirus lockdowns. The physicians wrote that, far from protecting public health, the lockdowns are causing “exponentially growing negative health consequences” for millions of Americans.

Since the lockdowns began, there have been increases in alcoholism, drug abuse, and domestic violence. There has also been an increase in calls to suicide hotlines. This is a direct result of the mass unemployment and limitations on people’s activities resulting from the lockdowns. As long as millions of Americans are sitting at home wondering how to survive until the government says they can go back to work — assuming the lockdowns did not drive their employers out of business, there will be more substance abuse and suicides.

At the start of the lockdowns, Americans were told to stay away from emergency rooms and doctors’ offices to avoid exposure to coronavirus. This has led Americans to neglect their health. US hospitals have seen a 40 percent decline in the number of patients admitted for severe heart attacks since March. Does anyone believe that the coronavirus panic just happened to coincide with a miraculous decline in heart attacks?

Physicians have also become unable to help many stroke victims who coronavirus lockdowns have kept from seeking medical assistance.

Early in the coronavirus panic, hospitals were told to cancel elective procedures to ensure space was available for an expected wave of coronavirus patients. But hospitals were not overwhelmed by coronavirus patients. Beds and other resources were unused.

According to the American Hospital Association, this has cost healthcare providers tens of billions of dollars in lost revenue. Inner-city and rural hospitals that already operate on slim profit margins are especially hard hit by the financial impact of the lockdowns. These hospitals may have to cut back on services. Some may even close. This will make it even more difficult for rural and inner-city Americans to obtain quality, affordable healthcare.

Postponing needed surgeries will have serious consequences. Many patients whose surgeries have been delayed will find that their once easily treatable conditions now require intensive and expensive care.

Some people are forgoing disease management and checkups that could keep them from developing more serious problems. The coronavirus lockdowns have even caused the canceling of chemotherapy treatments.

According to the physicians’ letter to President Trump, the coronavirus lockdowns are preventing 150,000 Americans a month from finding out they have cancer. Skipped routine cancer screenings mean cancer is not detected in an early stage, when it is most easily treated.

The coronavirus lockdowns have upended the lives of Americans to “protect” them from a virus with a 0.2 percent fatality rate, with the majority of those fatalities occurring in nursing homes and among people with chronic health conditions. Instead, the rational response would be to protect the vulnerable, and let the rest of the people live their lives. But politicians and government-anointed “experts” do not respond rationally to a “crisis,” especially when a panicked reaction can increase their power and prestige.

The lesson of the unnecessary lockdowns is clear: Government bureaucrats and politicians, even the media’s beloved Dr. Fauci, must be stripped of the ability to infringe on our liberty and prosperity.


Copyright © 2020 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.
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Exclusive images from inside British court expose Assange’s un-democratic treatment, physical deterioration | The Grayzone

Posted by M. C. on June 1, 2020

https://thegrayzone.com/2020/05/29/british-court-assanges-physical-deterioration/

By Max Blumenthal

Photographs surreptitiously taken inside a British courtroom and provided to The Grayzone show a visibly disoriented Julian Assange confined to a glass cage and unable to communicate with his lawyers.

Photographs taken inside London’s Woolwich Crown Court and provided exclusively to The Grayzone highlight the un-democratic measures the British security state has imposed on jailed Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange.

Captured during Assange’s extradition hearing, which took place between February 24 and 28, the images highlight the confinement Assange has been subjected to, as well as the physical deterioration he has experienced since he was arrested in April 2019 and jailed in a maximum security prison.

On February 26, Judge Vanessa Baraitser vowed to hold anyone in contempt of court for taking photographs. However, an observer had taken several photos a day before the judge’s warning.

Anonymous Scandinavia, a Sweden-based group of Wikileaks supporters, provided the photos to The Grayzone in order to expose what they considered to be the state repression of an investigative journalist.

The images show Assange confined to a glass cage, physically sequestered from his legal team, and unable to follow his own trial.

Throughout the hearing, Assange protested his isolation, complaining to Judge Baraitser, “I am as much a participant in these proceedings as I am at Wimbledon. I cannot communicate with my lawyers or ask them for clarifications.” He told members of his legal team he was unable to hear from inside the glass cage.

Below, a seemingly dejected Assange can be seen gazing through the bulletproof glass panes at two of his lawyers, Stella Morris and Baltazar Garzon.

In a heartfelt video testimonial released this April, Morris disclosed that she was the mother of two infant sons with Assange.

Throughout 2017, Morris was spied on by a Spanish security firm apparently hired by the CIA through Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands. At one point, the director of the firm ordered an employee to steal a diaper from one of Morris’s sons in an attempt to match his DNA to that of Assange.

“I understood that the powers that were against Julian were ruthless and there were no bounds to it,” Morris commented after learning of the surveillance campaign. “And that’s why I feel that I have to [reveal myself as the mother of Assange’s children]. Because I’ve taken so many steps for so many years and I feel that Julian’s life might be coming to an end.”

“Prolonged exposure to psychological torture” continues in court

Since its foundation in 2010, Wikileaks has published troves of documents exposing American war crimes, meddling, and corruption around the globe. Following the release of thousands of classified State Department cables provided by military whistleblower Chelsea Manning, Vice President Joseph Biden denounced Assange as a “high-tech terrorist.”

In April 2017, then-CIA director Mike Pompeo labeled Wikileaks a “hostile foreign intelligence agency,” denigrating Assange as a “fraud” in a speech telegraphing Washington’s malicious campaign against the publisher.

That December, US federal prosecutors filed a secret indictment charging Assange with 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act. He now faces 175 years in a US prison.

Nils Melzer, the United Nations special rapporteur on torture, warned that, if extradited, “Assange would be exposed to a real risk of serious violations of his human rights, including his freedom of expression, his right to a fair trial and the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

Melzer was disturbed by the traits he observed after meeting Assange in May 2019. In a report published by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the expert noted, “in addition to physical ailments, Mr. Assange showed all symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture, including extreme stress, chronic anxiety and intense psychological trauma.”

The photo below reveals a visibly disoriented Assange with a grim pallor and expressionless gaze.

Courtroom cages through history

Though Assange has never been convicted of a crime and has no record of violent behavior, his cage was more restrictive than the enclosure reserved for Adolph Eichmann when the top-level Nazi bureaucrat was placed on trial in Jerusalem in 1961. Unlike Assange, Eichmann was able to communicate freely with his lawyer and listen to a live translation of his trial.

During his corruption trial in Moscow in 2005, the Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky was similarly held in a cage. Following a formal protest of the confinement by his business partner and co-defendant, Platon Lebedev, who claimed that the cage represented a breach of the right to a presumption of innocence, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the two were subjected to “inhuman and degrading conditions in the courtroom.”

When Egypt’s first democratically elected leader, Mohamed Morsi, collapsed and died in a soundproof cage in a courtroom, six years after he was deposed in a 2013 military coup, Western media and human rights organizations including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International erupted in a chorus of condemnation.

These same rights groups have said little about the draconian restrictions imposed by the British security state on Assange throughout his extradition hearing. But their reticence might be excused on the grounds that clear images of his unwarranted courtroom isolation were not publicly available until now.

Assange’s hearing postponed, his isolation extended

The Belmarsh supermax prison where Assange has been held is regarded as the UK’s version of the US facility at Guantanamo. Aside from Assange, the jail is home to mafia henchmen, al-Qaeda members, and neo-fascist enforcers like Tommy Robinson. Around 20 percent of prisoners in Belmarsh are murderers, and two-thirds have committed a violent crime.

117 licensed medical professionals from around the world have written to the British and Australian governments to condemn “the torture of Assange,” “the denial of his fundamental right to appropriate health care, “the climate of fear surrounding the provision of health care to him” and “the violations of his right to doctor–patient confidentiality.”

Since the doctors’ open letter, Belmarsh has become a site of Covid-19 infection. As journalist Matt Kennard reported, a 2007 report by the UK’s Chief Inspector of Prisons found that “infection control was inadequate” in the detention facility.

Rather than allow a temporary medical furlough for Assange, however, Judge Baraitser has postponed  his extradition trial for four months, disappearing him again from public view.

“In 20 years of work with victims of war, violence and political persecution,” the UN’s Melzer said of the Wikileaks founder’s treatment, “I have never seen a group of democratic states ganging up to deliberately isolate, demonize and abuse a single individual for such a long time and with so little regard for human dignity and the rule of law.”

When Assange returns to court this September, the glass cage awaits.

 

 

 

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