Listen: Chris Hedges Interviews Julian Assange

[struggle4progress]

Posted on May 5, 2013
... audio excerpts from their extended conversation in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London ...
http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/listen_chris_hedges_interviews_julian_assange_20130505/

Assange, here, as we should expect by now, rather carelessly misrepresents a number of matters:

... JA: Politically, it’s—the head of the Swedish Supreme Court came out and said that the case is a mess ...

Lindskog's 3 April 2013 talk at the University of Adelaide actually ranged over various legal issues surrounding Assange and Sweden, including the problems Swedish transparency law creates with respect to keeping current police investigation documents out of the newspapers and the issue of Assange's possible extradition to the US from Sweden, which Lindskog regards as more or less impossible. Lindskog's comment "It's a mess" occurs a bit after the 0:46 mark in the video, and when he makes it, he has been talking extradition, not about the Swedish criminal case. (If you decide to follow the link to the videotape, you'll want to skip the first 14 minutes which mostly show audience wandering into the auditorium)

Assange -- who (of course) had earlier condemned Lindskog's talk as “absolutely outrageous” (see http://www.news.com.au/national-news/julian-assange-safe-from-extradition-to-us-says-justice-stefan-lindskog/story-fncynjr2-1226612062993) -- has by now had ample time to learn what Lindskog actually said, if he were interested in what Lindskog actually said

...Assange’s assistant: So the U.S. ambassador to the U.K. said .... early 2011 that the U.S. was waiting to see what happened with the Swedish case ...
JA: If not, there’d be one in the queue, and then the other one would come in, and then it would be the plight of the home secretary to make a decision, a reviewable court decision, a politically reviewable decision, to swap the precedent for these ...

US ambassador to the UK Louis Susman was on the 20 February 2011 Andrew Marr Show, and he said no such thing. Watch it yourself: the clip is only a bit over one minute

[treestar]

1. Julian babbles on nonsensically

The ambassador says "we'll see" at most.

[truedelphi]

2. How very predictable your comments happen to be.

I could actually pose as you, had I your password and the need to entertain myself in such a fashion.

[struggle4progress]

3. Mr Assange's dishonest claims are very predictable

And treestar is right about the ambassador's remarks: watch the video

[treestar]

11. His fans comments are quite predictable

We have a pot and kettle situation here. But Julian is babbling nonsense there - what the heck does that statement mean? Is he attempting to claim the American Ambassador is saying we'll arrest him? Because the Ambassador does not say that.

[Cha]

4. Yes, treestar, you have a predictably astute

Observation!

Thanks treestar!

[treestar]

12. Hey Cha

[Luminous Animal]

5. Someone is being dishonest here and it is not Assange.

Your quote #1
JA: Politically, it’s—the head of the Swedish Supreme Court came out and said that the case is a mess ...

That response was specific to Assange's extradition case not the criminal case. Here is the quote in context. (emphasis mine)

Chris Hedges: So what do you, when you watch all these sort of, you know, all this movement, what do you think they’re trying to do? How do they want to try and get you out of here?

Julian Assange: I think it’s a mess. I don’t think that they have—there’s so many different parties with different interests. It’s a mess. The U.K. wants it to go away, but doesn’t want to lose prestige in relation to Ecuador. The situation in Sweden is getting so bad now that … Sweden will never offend the U.S. Neither country—neither the U.K. or Sweden will ever offend the U.S. But within that, the situation is so bad now in Sweden—

Your quote #2... I am not sure what you are claiming here. Of course the Susman said that the U.S. is waiting until after the Swedish case, a fact that both Assange and his assistant repeated. (For some reason, you messed with the sequence and put two sentences together that were separated by other comments in the interview).

In context:

JA: They don’t need to. … We have some indications. The [then-U.S.] ambassador for the U.K., Louis Susman, said in the beginning of 2011 that they were waiting until after the Swedish case. The Independent [newspaper]—

CH: Waiting for what?

JA: What’s the U.S. interest in this situation? It’s up for my extradition. He didn’t say that, but it’s the obvious context.

Assange’s assistant: So the U.S. ambassador to the U.K. said early—

JA: 2011.

Assange’s assistant: … early 2011 that the U.S. was waiting to see what happened with the Swedish case.

Assange’s attorney Michael Ratner: They wouldn’t file at the same time, because then there’d be two competing extraditions—and so they would wait until—

CH: Oh, I see. OK, I got it.

JA: If not, there’d be one in the queue, and then the other one would come in, and then it would be the plight of the home secretary to make a decision, a reviewable court decision, a politically reviewable decision, to swap the precedent for these.

MR: So what they would do, is if they were going to actually, if Julian had won a non-extradition, they would likely at that point in the U.K. court file their extradition.

[truedelphi]

7. thanks for clarifying that.

I keep running into this quote of Albert's over at Facebook, and today, I think it applies to Assange.

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly." ~ Albert Einstein

[Zorra]

15. Very applicable, IMO. We could follow that with this quote

from John Stuart Mill, as an afterthought ~

“I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative".

[RetroLounge]

16. "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds"

Vary applicable to certain obsessed posters here in GD.



RL

[KoKo]

8. +1

[struggle4progress]

9. You should watch the clip: the ambassador did NOT say the US was waiting to see

what would happen with the Swedish case before asking for Assange's extradition. He was asked for his own opinion about whether the US should prosecute Assange, in response to which he said something noncommittal (along the lines of on-the-one-hand-and-on-the-other-hand) before concluding with an entirely bland We'll just have to wait and see what happens

[Luminous Animal]

10. "But at this point in time, we have brought no action against Mr. Assange and we’ll have to see how

it plays out in the British courts."

As Assange noted at the time, "What does the United States have to do with a Swedish Extradition process?"

[truedelphi]

14. When will Assange learn that no one is allowed to look behind the curtain?

After all, the PTB have drones that can neutralize you and me and our little dog Toto too!

[freshwest]

6. Thanks for another episode in the life of our internet hero. Sorry, can't watch it right now.

Thanks for transcribing.

I truly love this video, though. Go, Julian, Go!