American journalist: Assange should expect no justice in ‘the Empire of Lies’

An American writer and journalist says WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should expect no justice in “the Empire of Lies,” which is why Britain should never have agreed to extradite him to the US.

Robert Bridge, who is the author of Midnight in the American Empire: How Corporations and Their Political Servants are Destroying the American Dream, made the remarks in an article published by the RT website on Sunday.

“After years on the run from various governments, WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange now appears to be heading to the United States, where he can expect to face an election-year show trial built upon a mountain of media-supported lies,” Bridge wrote.

He denounced the British Home Office for deciding to extradite Assange to the United States, where he is wanted for his role in leaking thousands of secret government documents, saying he would not have his “right to a fair trial and … freedom of expression,” there.

The journalist said Assange’s extradition to the United States, should it occur, will have a “chilling” effect on press freedoms around the world.

Assange, 50, is wanted by the US government for publishing classified documents related to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars that were leaked by whistleblower Chelsea Manning, a US Army intelligence analyst.

In 2010 WikiLeaks published about 750,000 classified military and diplomatic documents. The most devastating batch was The Iraqi War Logs, which represents the biggest military leak in the history of the United States.

“The records provided irrefutable evidence that American and British officials had deceived the world when they claimed there was no official tallying of civilian deaths in the Iraq war. In a user-friendly dashboard, WikiLeaks allowed millions of people to locate 66,081 civilian deaths out of a total of 109,000 fatalities for the period from January 1, 2004 to December 1, 2009. This is the sort of transparency few militaries relish,” wrote Bridge.

“While revelations of Iraqi civilian deaths were shocking, they were not necessarily surprising. After all, by this time the American public had already been introduced to lurid places like Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, humanitarian no-go zones where the torture and abuse of inmates pulled back the curtain on a sick and twisted side to the military mind few could have imagined. Moreover, there was no way for the United States to sweet talk its way out of these allegations, which were there for all to see in black and white,” he added.

Assange had spent seven years at the Ecuadorian embassy in London before his arrest by UK Metropolitan Police in April after the Ecuadorian government canceled his asylum.

Former Republican congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul has said “truth is treason” when you are dealing with the American Empire.

Dr. Paul said Assange “has suffered a lot. I think this is a real tragedy for all journalism which means for all the people who are trying to find the news. And I think he fits into the category I think we talk so much that is ‘truth is treason’ you know when you have an Empire.” 

“But you know technically he even does not belong to our Empire. He is not a US citizen. But you know he was dealing with some of our secrets. He wasn’t the journalist they claim,” he said.

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“This is a big issue. I don’t think it would be too long before he would be extradited [to the US], according to my estimations. And he will suffer the consequences,” he predicted in April 2019.

“I think the only thing now that might stop this is public pressure.  There are some groups out there, probably groups much bigger and more influential than ours. But we have a few people who care about that,” he stated.

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