Those working on the case will know that Julian Assange is at risk of extradition from Britain to the US, where authorities want to try him for espionage over the release of 700.000+ confidential and classified US diplomatic and military documents, mostly about the US wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
We should mention what a dangerous precedent this version sets in the US: Assange has never been an employee of the US government and has never leaked classified information. He is a journalist who published information that was passed on to him. Not a US citizen, and not a US resident.
What Washington will prove if it succeeds in imprisoning Assange is that anyone, anywhere in the world, who publishes information that the US prefers to keep secret, can be hunted down and punished.
That in Britain there is no real protection against extradition on political charges, even though it is supposed to be prohibited, is equally ominous.
So it seems especially important to help defend Assange as politicians around the world unite in the latest case of militarism and war.
War crimes are back in the news as mass graves are uncovered in eastern Ukraine and establishment journalists report on Russian atrocities.
These atrocities require full investigation, but if you look at the politicians who use them, they try to take advantage to demand revenge and all-out war against a nuclear-armed state.
In this context, the publications of Wikileaks about the equally appalling behavior by the American, British, Australian soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan becomes invaluable.
From the video of “collateral kills” to the mass killing of civilians from the air and the cold-blooded killing of prisoners, NATO is as blood-soaked as any other adversary.
The US, UK, and Australian governments are not the good guys defending freedom from the evil Russians. They have waged a series of brutal and largely unprovoked wars over a very large part of the planet. They continue to equip and finance similar butcher shops in Yemen and many other war zones.
War means war crimes and the goal should be peace, not the victory of one set of war criminals over another.
