Category: News

In opposition to efforts by the U.S. Attorney General Holder to extradite Julian Assange, Editor in Chief of WikiLeaks, prominent authors, academics, lawyers, whistleblower activists concerned with eroding civil liberties, government accountability, electronic freedom, opposition to war, and protection of whistleblowers have signed on to a strongly worded statement (below) condemning ‘U.S efforts to fraudulently criminalize the legitimate journalism of Julian Assange…”.

“This statement is the first step in an ongoing campaign to support Julian Assange, WikiLeaks and to re-assert the concept that the U.S. government is accountable to its citizens,” said Linda Schade of WikiLeaksisDemocracy.org. “We will not accept the manipulation of our legal system to criminalize a journalist; a free and independent press is non-negotiable.” The project is planning an aggressive campaign to support Assange and WikiLeaks and has hosted the statement online.

Among the prominent signers are:

John Perry Barlow, Electronic Freedom Foundation
Medea Benjamin, CODE PINK
William Blum, the Empire Report
Tim Carpenter, Progressive Democrats of America
Noam Chomsky, professor emeritus of linguistics at MIT
Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, No FEAR Coalition
Daniel Ellsberg, former intelligence analyst who released the Pentagon Papers
Jodie Evans, CODE PINK
Margaret Flowers, MD, health care reform advocate
Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report
Eric Garris, Antiwar.com
Mike Gogulski, Bradley Manning Support Network
Chris Hedges, Former New York Times war correspondent and author
Jeff Paterson, Courage to Resist
Bill Quigley, Center for Constitutional Rights
Justin Raimondo, AntiWar.com
Coleen Rowley, whistle blower and former TIME Woman of the Year
Linda Schade, Voters for Peace, initiator WikiLeaks Is Democracy
Cindy Sheehan, Peace of the Action
Jeffrey St. Claire, Counterpunch
David Swanson, War is a Crime
Sue Udry, Defending Dissent
Harvey Wasserman, journalist, author, democracy activist
Naomi Wolf, author, democracy advocate and political activist
Colonel Ret. Ann Wright, retired military and U.S. Foreign Service
Kevin Zeese, Voters for Peace
Tariq Ali, historian, writer, filmmaker, political activist and commentator.

Contact information for some signers that represent the some of the different types of people signing on is available below the Statement from WikiLeaksIsDemocracy.org.

Statement From WikiLeaksIsDemocracy.org

“We, the undersigned, stand in defense of Julian Assange, WikiLeaks and their actions to safeguard and advance democracy, transparency and government accountability, as protected under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Wikileaks performs an invaluable service to the broad U.S. and global public with a commitment to the protection of human rights and the rule of law. Government representatives have issued serious and unjustified threats against Mr. Assange and his non-profit media organization which serve only to maintain a cloak of secrecy around high crimes and violations of international law, including torture, tampering with democratically elected governments, illegal bombings and wars, surveillance, mass slaughter of innocent civilians and more.

We call on all governments, organizations, and individuals of conscience forcefully to condemn and reject all U.S. efforts to fraudulently criminalize the legitimate journalism of Julian Assange, WikiLeaks and related efforts to expose an increasingly lawless U.S. government to the indispensable democratic requirement of public scrutiny. True or false, any charges which the Swedish government may pursue are irrelevant to the primacy of an independent free press.

Journalists should not be made into criminals for publishing materials critical of the government. Therefore, we reject any efforts to extradite Julian Assange to the United States or allied client states in relation to these matters. We condemn and reject every incitement to murder, incarcerate or in any way harm Mr. Assange. We encourage all those with information on corruption and violations of law to take courage from the example of Mr. Assange and WikiLeaks by acting to expose all such information into the light of public and judicial review.”

Suggested Contacts

The letter is being signed from people with different backgrounds and experience. You are welcome to contact any of them. To represent this breadth of view we recommend contacting the following people:

1. John Perry Barlow is a leader in the electronic freedom movement and is a co-founder of the Electronic Freedom Foundation. He has written for a diversity of publications, including Communications of the ACM, Mondo 2000, The New York Times, and Time. He has been on the masthead of Wired magazine since it was founded. He is a former Wyoming rancher and Grateful Dead lyricist. His piece on the future of copyright, “The Economy of Ideas,” is taught in many law schools, and his “Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” is posted on thousands of websites. He can be reached at barlow@eff.org. His phone nubers are 1-917-863-2037, 1800-654-4322 (both go to his mobile) or his landline 1-415-888-2241.

2. Daniel Ellsberg is a former U.S. military analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon analysis of the Vietnam War tothe New York Times. He can be reached at ellsbergd1@gmail.com

3. Noted author Naomi Wolf’s recent article on the US Espionage Act and WikiLeaks is linked here. She is an author and political consultant. She is a leading spokesperson for the third-wave of the feminist movement and an advocate for progressive causes most recently arguing that there has been a deterioration of democratic institutions in the United States. Naomi Wolf can be contacted at naomirwolf@aol.com or 1-646-334-1290.

4. Kevin Zeese is the executive director of Voters For Peace, is an attorney and noted political activist who works on a wide range of issues including war, torture accountability, economic justice and corporate influence on American democracy (see also www.ProsperityAgenda.US). Zeese served as Ralph Nader’s press secretary and spokesperson in 2004. He is widely quoted in the media. His most recent article on WikiLeaks, is Assange in the Grasp of U.S. Empire. Zeese can be reached at KBZeese@gmail.com. He can be reached by phone at 1-301-996-6582 (cell) or 1-443-708-8360 (office).

Linda Schade is the initiator of WikiLeaksisDemocracy.org which is an initiative of VotersForPeace.US. She served as the founding Executive Director of VotersForPeace, and most recently as the Director of Program Development at the Center for Climate Strategies. Ms. Schade is a 20-year political veteran featured on CNN, Fox News, C-SPAN, Washington Post, USA Today, NPR, Pacifica radio, and other media outlets on her peace, justice and democracy work.

For Further Information:
Linda Schade 202-422-5780
Kevin Zeese 301-996-6582

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for December 15th, 2010:

The Diplomat: American Enterprise Institute Scholar Michael Rubin is interviewed on The Diplomat blog on “how sanctions can work with Iran.” Rubin says that sanctions are having both an economic and reputational impact. “[Iranians] look at themselves as a country that was once on par with European countries like Spain and Portugal, and they see themselves now following headlong into the third world,” he says. Rubin advocates tightening sanctions on Iran’s banking sector and on passenger air travel as a way of “[making] life a little bit more inconvenient.” Rubin says he’d “never rule out a military option” but acknowledges that containment might be a more likely path than bombing. He concludes that he’s pessimistic about stopping Iran’s nuclear program with either diplomacy or a military strike and questions whether Israel has the capability to launch military strikes on Iran.

The Washington Post: The neoconservative blogger Jennifer Rubin writes that “pundits on the left” have for years said that negotiations with Iran should focus on Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei instead of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “Scholars and pundits critical of the administration’s Iran engagement policy” have argued that Ahmadinejad is a central player and “talking him out of pursuing nuclear weapons is a dangerous fantasy,” she argues. Rubin points to Ahmadinejad’s firing of Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki as the latest evidence backing up the ‘critics.’ Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations tells Jennifer Rubin that the move is part of an ongoing consolidation of power by Ahmadinejad. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s (WINEP) Michael Singh e-mails her and says: “I view this as just the first move in a power struggle over foreign policy, and it is too soon to tell how it will shake out.” Rubin suggests the latest events support the idea of “reflect[ing] on our current policy,” presumably switching to her own flawed prescriptions for aggressive military action. She concludes: “Those who advocate continued engagement, I would submit, have the burden of proof to demonstrate that we are doing more good than harm in continuing to participate in the Ahmadinejad-orchestrated charade.”

5,000 articles, that is.

Our news editor, Jason Ditz, who started writing news updates at news.antiwar.com in August 2008, hit 5,000 articles today. He is one of the most prolific writers I have ever met, often writing as many as 15 articles a day, plus a few op-eds a week.

In addition, Jason is in charge of researching and sorting the news at Antiwar.com. I am amazed at the amount of work he can cover.

Congratulations on your 5,000, Jason!

from LobeLog: News and Views Relevant to U.S.-Iran relations for December 14th, 2010:

The Weekly Standard: Stephen F. Hayes and Foundation for Defense of Democracies fellow Thomas Joscelyn write, in an article called “The Iran Connection”, that Undersecretary of State William Burns, in his Dec. 1 appearance before the House Foreign Affairs committee, “chose not to mention that the leaders of Iran have been fighting a stealth war against the United States, its soldiers, and its citizens.” Hayes and Joscelyn point back to the WikiLeaks cables alleging that Iran hosted Osama bin Laden’s son Ibrahim, and repeat the allegations that Iran has hosted senior al Qaeda terrorists “for years,” provided assistance to the Taliban and armed “violent extremists” in Iraq. They conclude, “Nearly a decade after the 9/11 attacks, not only do we have abundant evidence that Iran, the world’s foremost state sponsor of terror, supports al Qaeda. We also have evidence that Iran actively assists terrorists and insurgents targeting our soldiers and diplomats in two war zones.”

Pajamas Media: Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) “Freedom Scholar” Michael Ledeen attempts to draw parallels between the current state of domestic politics in Tehran, particularly in light of the firing of Iranian Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki, and Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan. Ledeen concludes, “Don’t try to decipher the ‘meaning’ of any one of the melodramatic events in Iran today or tomorrow; just remember that the leaders of the regime are fighting for survival, knowing that the Iranian people hate them, and suspecting each other of betrayal.”

It has lately become usual for right-wing columnists, bloggers, and jingo lawmakers to call for the assassination of people abroad whom we don’t like, or people who carry out functions that we don’t want to see performed. There was nothing like this in our popular commentary before 2003; but the callousness has grown more marked in the past year, and especially in the past six months. Why? A major factor was President Obama’s order of the assassination of an American citizen living in Yemen, the terrorist suspect Anwar al-Awlaki. This gave legal permission to a gangster shortcut Americans historically had been taught to shun.

The cult of Predator-drone warfare generally has also played a part. But how did such remote-control killings pick up glamor and legitimacy? Here again, the president did some of the work. On May 1, at the White House Correspondents dinner, he made an unexpected joke: “Jonas Brothers are here tonight. Sasha and Malia are huge fans. But boys, don’t get any ideas. Two words: predator drones. You will never see it coming.” The line caught a laugh but it should have caused an intake of breath. A joke (it has been said) is an epigram on the death of a feeling. By turning the killings he orders into an occasion for stand-up comedy, the new president marked the death of a feeling that had seemed to differentiate him from George W. Bush. A change in the mood of a people may occur like a slip of the tongue. A word becomes a phrase, the phrase a sentence, and when enough speakers fall into the barbarous dialect, we forget that we ever talked differently.

Reprinted from Huffington Post with permission of the author.