Those suddenly concerned about the European Arrest Warrant in Westminster last night were notably silent when it was used against Julian Assange, with a case that had more holes in it than a condom torn by Anna Ardin, the noted CIA agent.
Not only was the evidence against Assange not tested, the Supreme Court accepted that a Swedish prosecutor with a screaming political agenda was a “judicial authority”, despite her being neither a judge nor a court. That extraordinary ruling was itself dependent on two even more extraordinary false premises, directly stated in Lord Phillip’s judgement.
1) That the French term “autorites judiciaires” has a “wider meaning” than the English term “judicial authorities”. That is simply untrue.
2) That the French language version of the treaty is “authentic and original” and to be preferred to the English version. That is absolutely untrue – the different language versions are explicitly equal. That is a fundamental rule of EU (and UN)treaties, both of which I have personal experience of negotiating.
The bottom line being, if the Establishment wants to get you, it will, irrespective of the letter of the law.
The “noted CIA agent”? Any evidence for that?
Andreas
The word “agent” is misunderstood from fiction. James Bond, for example, would not be a secret agent. He would be an MI6 officer. “Agents” are casual operators recruited by officers to carry out operations. They can be channels of information, agents of influence or carry out specific tasks.
It is the nature of secret espionage that written evidence is difficult to obtain – not least because the names of agents are never given in reports, for example. While in the FCO I sometimes had to sign over very large sums of cash to MI6 to pay to agents – the names were never given even when they were being paid hundreds of thousands of pounds. The point of which is this is not fiction. The security services really do exist, in their tens of thousands, and the active officers run several agents each. There are a very large number of these agents out there.
Anna Ardin’s profile, her activities in Cuba, her active approach to Assange just after WikiLeaks came to international prominence, all fit absolutely the profile of an agent. My many senior ex-CIA friends are in no doubt she is an agent. Neither am I.
Don’t you think, Mr Murray, that it would be a good idea to start a concerted international campaign for fundamental reform of the CIA and other intelligence agencies? It is very undemocratic to have such unaccountable agencies operating without robust oversight.
Hypocrisy is what the establishment does. Maybe which should coin the term hypocracy to mean a government of hypocrites?
AAMVN
Very good!
May rode roughshod as is her wont.
She nearly lost by 9 votes.
No mention of Julian in the proceedings of course.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmhansrd/cm141110/debtext/141110-0002.htm
Should be interesting. There are many disaffected Tory boys and girls.
Labour to trigger new vote on European Arrest Warrant as fallout from chaotic Commons debate deepens
An opposition debate on eve of Rochester and Strood by-election will be used to give MPs a fresh vote on controversial measure amid fury from Tory backbenchers http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11222456/Labour-to-trigger-new-vote-on-European-Arrest-Warrant-as-fallout-from-chaotic-Commons-debate-deepens.html
The Greek scholars among you will have noted that the term “politics’ is derived from two Greek words: ‘poly’, meaning ‘many’, and ‘tics’, meaning blood-sucking insects . . .
Yes I like ‘hypocracy’ too.
Excellent post Craig. I am not in doubt that Anna Ardin ‘was’ an agent and may still be. One thing I took the trouble of doing some months back was to read her thesis, which is available on her website – though as we know several incriminating items have been removed.
https://annaardin.wordpress.com/thesis/
What I found unbelievable was that somebody could go to Cuba interviewing anti-Castro groups without asking any of them a single question about Guantanamo Bay. It would be the first question on the lips of any independent and proper researcher. “What would you do about Gauntanamo Bay?” “For all Castro’s faults is not Guantanamo Bay the biggest crime on the island?”
The bottom line being, if the Establishment wants to get you, it will, irrespective of the letter of the law.
Quite so Craig- thats because the brit establishment themselves are ABOVE the law, as has so clearly been shown recently( bankers, mp expenses, bbc etc etc)
Brand and Žižek lead celebrity call for greater whistleblower protections
More than 50 actors, musicians and philosophers hail Edward Snowden and say those who reveal ‘war crimes and corruption’ deserve support
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/10/celebrities-whistleblower-protections-snowden-wikileaks-actors
There are some vile messages in the comments.
We live in a Hypocracy where a small number of hypocrats maintain a pigopoly on power. No matter who you vote for, members of the hypocracy get in.
I sort of get the impression that the British government might be much in the same mind as you are.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2fDO69dSEQ&feature=em-uploademail
Anna Ardin may or may not have been in the employ of the CIA. Nevertheless, it is still possible to adequately explain every one of her actions on the basis of her not being an agent for any security service.
But the result is still the same: Julian Assange was ensnared by the Swedish state using sexual offence allegations against him
John Goss I just found you on News Junkie Post. Well done.
I went there looking to contact Gilbert Mercier whose article I had just read on Counterpunch.
November 11, 2014
Veterans Day
Denounce the World Order of Permanent War
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/11/11/denounce-the-world-order-of-permanent-war/
There is a typo within. The gap between the end of WW1 and the beginning of WW11 is 21 years, not 31. Would you be able to ask him to make a correction? Thanks.
Arbed’s most recent comment on Squonk. ref Julian.
https://squonk.tk/blog/2014/10/06/ebola/comment-page-1/#comment-11043
Mary, many thanks. I’ve sent Gilbert a message but of course he will probably be asleep at this time. Well spotted. Hope you are feeling better.
As to Veterans’ Day on Saturday Veterans for Peace laid a wreath of white poppies at the Cenotaph. You know in all the history of hypocratical governments one measure has never been tried. Peace.
http://veteransforpeace.org.uk/2014/veterans-for-peace-uk-at-the-cenotaph-2014/
Thanks, Mary. No update on that as yet. The Assange defence team has put in their latest response to the prosecutor in the Swedish appeal (all this back and forth seems tedious – an oral hearing, which was denied by the SVEA court, would’ve been so much better – but at least it gets quite a lot of material into the public domain). Here it is, unfortunately only in Swedish so far. English translation will follow soon, I guess:
http://www.speedyshare.com/3w6Wz/Svea-HR-O-8290-14-aktbil-26.pdf
SVEA court is a bit ambiguous on when it’s going to rule. By the end of next week, or earlier than that on the SMS/CJEU preliminary ruling matter?
http://www.svea.se/Avgoranden-och-pagaende-mal/Pagaende-langmal/Information-om-overklagandet-av-Julian-Assange-betraffande-haktning/
The issue of the prosecutor’s tactic of trying to put the exculpatory evidence of the women’s text messages and phone traffic beyond the reach of Sweden’s Freedom of Information laws is illuminated by a recent UK Supreme Court decision clearly stating that extradition evidence must be available to both sides. This concerned an appeal over a Rwandian extradition case. I liked this, from the UKSC’s press release:
“the relevance, truthfulness & persuasiveness of evidence cannot be tested in a closed hearing”
https://www.supremecourt.uk/decided-cases/docs/UKSC_2014_0103_PressSummary.pdf
If anyone wants a quick primer on the main problems critics see in the UK’s use of the EAW, and how these impact Julian Assange’s case, these are good:
http://thinkinglegally.wordpress.com/2014/11/06/eaw-european-arrest-warrant-perceived-problems/
http://alrich.wordpress.com/2013/07/10/theresa-may-european-arrest-warrant-julian-assange-awaits-decision/
Hypo is Greek for under or low, so hypocracy means rule from beneath or by those who are low. Still good.
according to this hypocrate Israel is right to exterminate palestinians (who are dubbed terrorists)
Amazing though, so many commenters who think Israel is an evil entity.
http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/11/07/top-u-s-general-israel-%E2%80%98went-to-extraordinary-lengths%E2%80%99-to-limit-gaza-casualties-video/
The Establishment is for troughers, and it stinks, as noted elsewhere. So a high porkcracy, then.
The bottom line being, if the Establishment wants to get you, it will, irrespective of the letter of the law.
Craig’s statement also holds good in reverse- if the establishment wishes to protect you, it will, producing official verbiage which pronounces ‘move along, nothing to see here’, and which in turn is given favourable spin by the MSM-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30002908
The bottom line being, if the Establishment wants to get you, it will, irrespective of the letter of the law.
Craig’s statement also holds good in reverse- if the establishment wishes to protect you, it will, producing official verbiage which pronounces ‘move along, nothing to see here’, and which in turn is given favourable spin by the MSM-
Quite so Mark.
If one is above the law, then ANYTHING is within their power!
I believe that some poor sods still think the uk is a democracy?? Hahahaha!
“I believe that some poor sods still think the uk is a democracy?? Hahahaha!”
Show of hands who believes the UK is a democracy? Count me out.
in other hypocrisy news, BBC is not guilty of censorship by ommission/propaganda according to Ofcom
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/nov/10/russia-today-ofcom-sanctions-impartiality-ukraine-coverage
however according to an article that I just wrote in Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udo_Ulfkotte
seemingly Putin doesn’t give enough direct payola to counter the agents of influence in the British media establishment
Some regulatory places have found exactly the opposite media bias!
http://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=23381 which loosely translates to
: The criticism of the program advisory board of the German First Network ARD for your Enlightenment
Responsible: Albrecht Müller
This is important. The agitation [reaction], however, has already begun. Therefore this call. – The facts: In June this year, the program committee of the ARD has unanimously criticised Ukraine coverage and commentary on the First German Television as one-sided, simplistic and incomplete. We have already pointed this out. The program committee has acted and had the evening news broadcasts, the issues of the day, the focal points and other relevant programs considered, because a lot of criticism had been practiced by many viewers. We know that many NachDenkSeiten[thinking pages]-readers are among these critics. You can evaluate with good reason also for the success of your and our work, therefore, is that is finally investigated within the bodies of the first of the one-sidedness unbearable.
German Council of the Press [PressRat] condemned use of MH17 images for [anti-Putin] political purposes
http://deutsche-wirtschafts-nachrichten.de/2014/09/12/mh17-presserat-kritisiert-bild-und-spiegel-wegen-berichterstattung/
“I believe that some poor sods still think the uk is a democracy?? Hahahaha!”
Show of hands who believes the UK is a democracy? Count me out.
Well John, I suspect at least 55% of Scots believe it is, which may be why they wished it to continue?
Cant speak for the rest of the UK though, but I suspect it won’t be quite so high as that………..
Meanwhile at High Pork Rat Central:
http://www.sarawakreport.org/2014/11/how-1mdbs-development-money-paid-tony-blair-rm218000pm/
This is the best report I can find outside a paywall, and covers the Malaysian 1MDB connection, which is not reported by UK MSM.
Note: Blair is being paid for using influence. Specifically.
Note: $55K (US)/month to Firerush, and $10K/month to Windrush. Both firms are completely opaque, behind limited-partnership cover, but going by what is visible, funds would appear to be freely transferable between both. There is more to this than meets the casual journalist’s eye, I think.
And note:
PetroSaudi was set up by the son of the King of Saudi Arabia, Prince Turki bin Abdullah bin Adbulaziz, making the connection extremely sensitive.
Indeed, Sarawak Report has been able to establish that the company apparently went to considerable lengths to disguise the Prince Turki connection back in 2009/10.
This was in the aftermath of the billion dollar investment by 1MDB and at the time that Tony Blair was engaged to promote the company.
The Establishment is for troughers, and it stinks – This is the British establishment – For the greater good it murders folk caught in it’s web, at will, to further hegemony and war.
The 7/7 London Bombings Enigma:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwyzpzEgUWE
@John:
I think it is important to continue to behave as if we were living in a democracy, and continue to take those who commit undemocratic actions to task. This is important for maintenance of moral standards and for public morale… Remember what happened to Yugoslavia when the people allowed the veil of democracy to slip!
@Ba’al: could Tony Blair be regarded as an “agent”, if he’s accepting money in this way?
“The 7/7 London Bombings Enigma:”
_______________________________
Mark Golding
As far fetch as it may seem I read an article, can’t recall where now, that Charles de Menezes, was an electronic engineer who was involved, in setting up the explosive devices that caused the 7/7 bombings.
The article went on to say how Mr Menezes, would tell anyone who’d listen to him, that he was employed by the government, to carry out special tasks, like installing electronic equipment covertly.
If indeed there’s any substance to the story, and I wouldn’t rule it out, I can now understand why they shot him 7 times in the head, then hid behind the guidelines of Operation Kratos.
The establishments inquiry over the matter reached a convenient Open Verdict.