11/021 11/09/21 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york and glasgow, this is democracy now! >> u.s. department of defse has a larger annual carbon footprint than most countries on earth, and it also is the single largest polluter on earth. amy: today we look at the seldom discussed link between u.s. militarism and the climate crisis. the u.s. military is one of the

world's largest greenhse gas emitters and the world's biggest consumer of oil, but milary emissions have been exempted from international climate treaties for decades. we will speak to two u.s. veterans. >> it is absolutely imperative at we incle u.s. military emissions in the overall accountingf greenhou gases emitted into the atmosphere, even if it is politically inconvenient to do so. amy: plus, we speak to stella moris, the partner of julian assange. she is in glasgow highlighting wikileaks's role in exposing the hypocrisy of wealthy nations in addressing the climate crisis. >> julian should never be extradited because he was doing his job as a journalist, being criminalized as a journalist. amy: all that and more, coming up.

welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. negotiators at a crucial united nations climate summit in glasgow, scotland, have released a first draft of the cop26 final decision text. it is being blasted by environmentalists as exceptionally weak. greenpeace noted the 850-word document fails to acknowledge that fossil fuels are driving the climate crisis, while making no commitment to tangible actions to end global reliance on coal, oil and gas. the draft text's release came as former president barack obama traveled to glasgow, where he called on world leaders to step up their actions to avert climate disaster, while blasting china and russia for hindering progress on the climate emergency. mitzi tan, a youth climate activist from the philippines, said obama's words rang hollow. >> the u.s. is the country that

is most responsible for the climate crisis and yet they have barely done anything. they have promised so much, pledged so much, enough considering the amount of emissions, the amount of pollution, the amount of injustices they have done to the rest of the world. amy: to see our extended interview with mitzi tan, go to democracynow.org. this comes as a "washington post" investigation has found most countries' pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are built on flawed data. "the post" examined 196 country reports and found a giant gap between what nations declare their emissions to be versus the greenhouse gases they are actually sending into the atmosphere. elsewhere in glasgow, police reportedly used a battering ram early monday morning to break

into a disused former homeless shelter that had been converted into temporary squat for climate activists. witnesses described metropolitan

police and welsh forces going from room to room with batons drawn. the officers' conduct reportedly shocked scottish police who arrived on the scene soon after the raid. activists say they've since reopened the space. after headlines, we'll go to glasgow for the latest on the cop26 climate summit. covid-19 cases continue to surge to record highs in many parts of europe. germany is averaging more than 28,000 daily infections -- its worst case rate of the pandemic. austria has ordered unvaccinated people to keep out of cafes, barber shops, and other public spaces as cases expand exponentially. russians returned to workplaces around the country monday after a mandatory nine-day break ordered by president putin. it's not clear whether the move will flatten russia's covid-19 curve. today russia reported another record daily toll of more than 1200 deaths in just 24 hours. in the united states, coronavirus cases have leveled off, with an average of more than 72,000 daily infections. however, the number of hospitalized patients is continuing a slow decline. more than 1200 u.s. residents a day are dying of covid-19, the vast majority of them unvaccinated. the u.s.-mexico border reopened monday for nonessential travelers with visas who are fully vaccinated, allowing many binational families and loved ones to reunite for the first time since covid-19 restrictions were enacted over a year and a half ago. this is a resident of juárez, across the border from el paso, texas. >> it really is a very special day because everyone who lives

near the border knows we are like one big city. the way we live and get along is unique in that is why today is special, because a lot of people spent last 20 months without seeing each other, without visiting. today is a celebration for us. amy: loved ones also celebrated reunions at u.s. airports as restrictions were lifted for fully vaccinated international travelers into the united states. this comes as immigrant justice advocates reported that while the u.s. lifted its restrictions for nonessential travelers, customs and border protection agents at u.s. ports of entry across the southern border are still blocking asylum seekers from entering the u.s., including unaccompanied children. in related news, the biden administration is launching an operation this week to start deportation proceedings for some 78,000 migrants who crossed into the u.s. this year but were not immediately expelled or taken to an immigration jail. in europe, the polish government has deployed thousands more

soldiers and police to its eastern border with belarus as it intensifies its violent crackdown on migrants and refugees -- mostly from the middle east and africa -- who are fleeing violence, poverty, and the impacts of the climate catastrophe. one kurdish refugee from syria who gained asylum in austria traveled to the border to help his parents try to cross into poland from belarus. >> first of all, i am not just helping any old person. i am helping my parents. i think in the laws of all countries of all regions, it is not for bitten for a person to help their parents. second of all, the people there, aside from my parents, they are also human beings. they need help. amy: in nicaragua, president daniel ortega has declared victory and will be serving a fourth term after winning sunday's election by a landslide. the united states, european union, and others quickly announce they will not recognize the election results, denounced by opponents as illegitimate

after ortega's government jailed at least seven presidential hopefuls, accusing them of being u.s. allies. ortega, alongside vice president and first lady rosario murillo, celebrated their reelection monday in managua's revolution plaza, where ortega blasted the u.s. government for supporting a coup attempt in 2018 and for continuing to interfere in nicaragua. many have also denounced ongoing and crippling u.s. sanctions on nicaragua. mobile phones belonging to at least palestinian human six rights activists were hacked with the israeli firm nso group's pegasus spyware. the findings were published in a joint report by amnesty international, front line defenders, and the university of toronto's citizen lab. those hacked include workers with palestinian nonprofits who were designated terrorist groups by israel last month. in related news, a u.s. federal appeals court is allowing whatsapp messaging service to move forward with a lawsuit

against nso group over allegedly targeting some of its servers in california to infect about 1400 mobile devices with malware, a violation of state and federal law. this comes as israel is lobbying the u.s. government to remove the nso group from a trade blacklist, arguing its software is crucial to israel's foreign policy. the group's pegasus spyware has been ud by governments to target hundreds of activists, journalists, and government officials. the u.s. justice department said monday it has indicted two hackers behind major ransomware attacks in the u.s. and has recovered more than $6 million in cryptocurrey payments attorney general merrick garland said one of the two men, a russian hacker with the r-evil ransomware gang, remained at large, while a ukrainian co-conspator had been arrested in poland and would be extradited to the u.s. for trial. garland said the criminal gang's

ransomware has infected over 175,000 computers rldwide, with at least $2 million paid in ransom. an alleged capitol rioter wanted by the fbi is seeking political asylum in belarus. evan neumann is wanted for violent entry, disorderly conduct, and assaulting and resisting law enforcement. on monday, he appeared on a belarusian state tv segment titled "goodbye, america." meanwhile, a house panel investigating the january 6 insurrection has subpoenaed six allies of former president trump, including his disgraced former national security adviser michael flynn. lawmakers want details on how the allies' false claims of voter fraud whipped up the pro-trump mob that attacked the capitol. in the days before the riot, michael flynn publicly called for a military coup to overthrow the u.s. government, and during an oval office meeting, discussed seizing voting machines and invoking a national emergency. on friday, president trump's

former acting assistant attorney general at the time of the insurrection jeffrey clark refused to testify to congressional investigators, citing trump's claims of executive privilege. in response, january 6 committee chair benny thompson said he was weighing criminal contempt charges for clark. clark was a key player in donald trump's efforts to enlist the justice department to sow doubt over results of the presidential election in georgia. and the supreme court heard oral arguments monday in a case that will determine whether three muslim men from california can sue the fbi for illegally spying on them after the 9/11 attacks. lawyers for the bureau argue the suit should be dismissed under the state secrets privilege. in 2006 and 2007, the fbi recruited a man named craig monteilh to pose as a muslim convert in order to infiltrate mosques and islamic groups around orange county, where he secretly recorded conversations. the former imam at one mosque,

sheikh yassir fazaga, who is now lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, says monteilh planted a recording device in his office. >> to meet that is a very common very sensitive area. i am a therapist or people ce in and share with me. to know the fbi was potentially recording the sessions, that is a legal, it is unethical, it is not institional. it puts a lot of people's lives in jeopardy and their well-being and the rights of privacy. amy: and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. when we come back, we look at the seldom discussed link between u.s. militarism and the climate crisis. the u.s. military is a larger polluter that 140 countries, but military emissions have been exempted from international climate treaty's decades. we will speak to work veterans.

stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: "emergency on planet earth" by jamiroquai. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. we are broadcasting from glasgow, new york, and new jersey. i am an goodman joined by my cohost juan gonzalez. hi, juan. juan: hi, amy. welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. amy: former u.s. president barack obama addressed the u.n. climate summit monday and criticized the leaders of china and russia for not attending the talks in glasgow. pres. obama: most nations have

failed to be as ambitious as they need to be. the escalation, the ratcheting up of ambition we anticipated in paris six years ago has not been uniformly realized. i have to confess, it was particularly discouraging to see the leaders of two of the world's largest emitters, china and russia, declined to even attend the proceedings. and the national plan so far reflects what appears to be a ngerous lack of urgency, unwillingness to mntain the status quo on the part of those governments. and that is a shame. amy: while obama singled out china and russia, climate justice activists openly criticize president obama for failing to deliver on climate pledges he made as president and for his role in overseeing the world's largest military. this is filipina activist mitzi tan. >> i definitely think the president obama is a

disappointment because he lauded himself as the black president who cared about the people of color. but if he did, he would not have failed us. he would not have let this happen. he would not have killed people with drone strikes and that is connected to the climate crisis because u.s. military is one of the biggest polluters causing the climate crisis most of their so many things that president obama and the u.s. has to do in order to really claim they are the climate leaders say they are. amy: speakers at last week's large fridays for future rally in glasgow also called out the u.s. military's role in the climate crisis. >> i come from northern region of pakistan. u.s. department of defense has a larger annual carbon footprint than most countries on earth, and it also is the single largest polluter on earth.

if military presence in my region had caused the u.s. over a chilean dollars since 1976 -- 820 and dollars since 1976. it has contributed to destruction in afghanistan, iraq, iran, the greater persian gulf, and pakistan. not only western induced wars, they have led to -- depleted uranium and cause poisoning of air and lead to birth defects, suffering of thousands of people. amy: the cost of war project estimates the u.s. military produced around 1.2 billion tons of carbon emissions between 2001 and 2017, with nearly a third coming from u.s. wars overseas, including in afghanistan and iraq. by one account, the u.s. military is a larger polluter

and 140 countries combined, including numerous industrialized nations such as sweden, denmark, and portugal. however, military carbon emissions have largely been exempted from international climate treaties dating back to the 1997 kyoto protocol thanks to lobbying from the united states. at the time, a group of neoconservatives, including future vice president and then halliburton ceo dick cheney, argued in favor of exempting all military emissions. on monday, a group of climate activists staged a protest outside the cop spotlighting the role of the u.s. military in the climate crisis. we are joined now by three guests. inside the u.n. climate summit is ramón mejía, the anti-militarism national organizer of grassroots global justice alliance. he's an iraq war veteran. we are also joined by erik edstrom, who fought in the afghan war and later studied climate change at oxford. he is the author of

"un-american: a soldier's reckoning of our longest war" and joins us from boston. also with us in glasgow is neeta crawford with the cost of war project at brown university and is a professor. ramón mejía, you protested inside and outside the cop. how did you go from being an iraq or better to a climate justice activist? >> thank you for having me, amy. i participated in the invasion of iraq in 2003. as part of that invasion, which was a crime, was able to witness this your destruction of the iraqi infrastructure, it's water treatment plants, sewage, and it was something i could not live with myself and could not continue to support so after

leaving the military, i had to speak up and oppose u.s. militarism in every shape, way, or form it shows up in our community. in iraq alone, the iraq climate people have been researching and said they are -- have the worst genetic damage that has ever been studied or researched. it is my obligation as a war veteran to speak out against wars and especially how wars impact not only our people, the environment, and the climate. juan: what about this issue of the role of the u.s. military in fossil fuel emissions? when you were in the military, was there any sense of your fellow gis about this enormous

pollution that the military is visiting on the planet? >> when i was in the military, there wasn't any discussion about chaos that we were creating. i conducted resupply convoys throughout the country, delivering tanks, repair

and find ways to go is business as usual without addressing the roots of the conversation. this cop has been dubbed net zero, but this is just a false unicorn. a false solution someone is greeting the military is. we have to address the violence the military wages and the catastrophic effects it has on our world. the conversation within the cop are not genuine because we can't even hold pointed conversations and hold those accountable. we have to speak in generality. we can't say u.s. military, we have to say "military."

we can't say our government is the one that is most responsible for pollution, we have to speak in generalities. when there is the unlevel playing field, we know the discussions aren't genuine here, genuine discussions that real change is happening in the streets with our communities and international movements that are here to not only discuss but i pressure -- apply pressure, we have been calling it the cop is a convening of puppeteers. that is what it is. we are here not to concede the space in which power resides, we are here to apply pressure and speak on behalf of our international comrades and movements from around the world that are not able to come to glasgow because of vaccine apartheid and the restrictions they have on coming to discuss what is happening in their communities. we are here to uplift their

voices and continue to speak with them on what is happening around the world. amy: we're also joined by yet another marine corps veteran, and he is erik edstrom, went on to study climate at expert -- oxford and write a book. if you could talk about, the same question i asked ramon, here you were a marine corps veteran, how you went from that to a climate activist and what we should understand about the cost of war at home and abroad. you fight in afghanistan. >> thank you, amy. i would be remiss if i did not make a brief correction, i am an army officer or former me officer and don't want to take heed from my fellow alex for being misconstrued as a marine officer. the journey to climate activism

i think started when i was in afghanistan and realized we were solving the wrong problem, the wrong way. we were missing the upstream issues, underpinning foreign policy around the world, which is the disruption caused by climate change which endangers other communities, creates geopolitical risk, effectively playing taliban whack-a-mole while ignoring the climate crisis seem like a terrible use of priorities. immediately when i was done with my military service, i wanted to study what i believe is the most important issue facing this generation. today when reflecting upon e emissions under the overall accounting globally, it is not only intellectually dishonest to exclude them, it is a and dangerous. one coat i would like to ask you about the relationshipetween oil and military, the u.s.

military but also other imperial militaries around the world. historically has been a relationship of military seeking to control oil resources in times of war, as well as being prime users of these oil resources to build up their military capacity, hasn't there? >> there has been. i think amy did a fantastic job playing out and so did the other speaker around military being the largest institutnal consumer of fossil fuels in the world, and i think that definitely drives some of the decision-making in the military. the emissions attributable to the u.s. military more than civilian aviation and shipping combined. but one of the things i really wanted to drive on this conversation is around something that is not discussed very much in the cost of war, which is the social cost of carbon. or the negative externalities associated with our global food.

as a military around the world. amy was right to point out citing that the 1.2 billion metric tons of estimated emissions from the military during the time of the global war on terror. when you look at public health studies that start to do the calculus to say how many times must you emit in order to harm somebody else in the world, t is about4 hundred tons. if you do thsimple arithmetic, the global war on terror has potentially caused the 270,000 climate related deaths around the globe, which further heightens and exacerbates an already high cost of war. and strategically, it undermines the very objectives the military is helping to achieve, which is stability and morally it is also further undermining the very

commission's statement and the oath of the military, which is to protect americans and be a global force for good. if you take a globalized or globalization perspective. so undermining the climate crisis and turbocharging it is not the role of the military, and we need to apply additional pressure for them to both disclose and reduce its massive carbon footprint. amy: i remember this sad joke with the u.s. invasion of iraq, a little boy sank to his father, "what is our oil doing under their sand?" i was wondering if you could elaborate more, erik edstrom, on what constitutes emissions and watches the pentagon understand? for years when we were covering the bush wars under george w. bush, there was -- we would always cite they're not talking

about their own pentagon studies saying climate change is a critical issue of the 21st century, but what do they understand both overall about the issue and the role of the take on in polluting the world? close i think probably the senior levels of brass with the military, there is understanding climate ange is real existential threat. there is a disconnect which is a point of tension which is what is the military going to do specifically about it? specifically, its own emissions? if the military were to disclose its full carbon footprint and to do so on a regular basis, that number would be deeply embarrassing and create a tremendous amounof politic pressure on the u.s. military to reduce those emissions going forward. so you could understand the reluctance, but nonetheless, we should absolutely count military missions because it has not maer what the source is. if it comes from civilian or

military aircraft, to the climate itself, does not matter. we must count every tonne of emissions irrespective if it is politically inconvenient to do so. without the disclosure, we are running blind. to prioritize decarbonization efforts, we need to know the sources and volume of this village are emissions so that our leaders and politicians can make informed decisions about which sources they might want to shut down first. is it overseas bases? is it the vehicle platform? those decisions will not be known and we cannot make smart choices intellectually and strategically until those numbers come out. amy: a new research from brown university's cost of war project shows the department of homeland security has been overly focused on foreign and foreign-inspired terrorism while violent attacks in the u.s. have more often come from domestic sources, you know, talking about white supremacy, for example.

neeta crawford is with this, just outside the cop, the u.n. summit. she is the co-director of the cost of war project. professor, we welcome you back to democracy now! why are you with the climate summit? we usually just talk to you but the overall cost of war. >> thank you, amy. i am here because there are several universities in the u.k. who want to try to include military emissions more fully and the individual countries declarations of their emissions. every year, every country that is in the parties to the treaty from kyoto have to put some of their military emissions in their national inventory. it is not a full accounting. that is what we would like to see. juan: neeta crawford, could you

talk about what is not being registered or monitored in terms of the military? it is not just the fuel that powershe jets of an air force or that powers ships as well. given the hundreds and hundreds of military bases the united states has around the world, what are some of the aspects of the carbon footprint of the u.s. military that people are not paying attention to? >> i think there are three things to keep in mind. first, there are emissions from installations. the u.s. has about 750 military installations abroad, overseas, and it has about 400 in the u.s. most of those installations abroad we don't know what their emissions are. and that is because of the 1997 kyoto protocol decision to exclude those emissions or have them count for the country the

bases are located in. so the other thing we don't know is a large portion of emissions from operations. at kyoto, the decision was taken not to include operations from war that were sanctioned by the united nations or other multilateral operations. so those emissions are not included. there is also something known as bunker fuels, which are the fuels used on planes and aircraft -- i'm sorry, aircraft and ships in international waters. most of the united states navy's operations are in international waters, so we don't know those emissions. those are excluded. the reason for that was in 1997, the dod sent a memo to the white house saying if emissions were included, and the u.s. military might have to reduce its operations.

they said in their memo, a 10% reduction in emissions good lead to a lack of readiness. and that lack of readiness would mean the united states would not be prepared to do two things. one is not be militar -- militarily superior. and secondly, not be able to spot to what they saw as the climate crisis. why were they so aware in 1997? because they have been studying the climate crisis since the 1950's and 1960's and they work aware of the effects of the -- they were aware of the effects of the greenhouse gas. there's another large category of emissions we don't know about which is any omission coming out of the military-industrial complex, all of the equipment that we use has to be produced somewhere. much of it comes from large military-industrial corporations in the united states. some of those corporations

acknowledge what are known as direct and somewhat indirect emissions, but we don't know the entire supply chain. so i have an estimate the top military-industrial companies have emitted about the same amount of also fuel emissions, greenhouse gas emissions as the military itself in one year. so really when we think about the entire carbon footprint of the united states military, it has to be said we are not counting all of it. in addition, we are not counting the department of homeland security emissions and those should be included as well. juan: could you talk about vern pitts as well b --urn pits as well? the u.s. military must be unique that everywhere he goes, it always ends up destroying stuff on the way out whether it is a war or occupation. could you talk about burn pits

as well? >> i don't know as much about vern -- burn pits. from the colonial era to the civil war the civil war log structures were made from the entire forests cut down or roads were made from trees, the united states military as a mechanism of environment destruction. in the revolutionary war and in the civil war and obviously in vietnam and korea, united states has taken out areas -- jungles or forest -- with a thought insurgents would hide. so the burn pits are a larger disregard for the atmosphere and the environment, the toxic environment. even the chemicals left at bases

that are leaking from containers for fuel are toxic. as both of the other speakers have said, there is a larger environmental damage footprint we need to think about. amy: in 1990 seven, group of neoconservatives, including the future vice president and halliburton ceo dick cheney, argued in favor of exempting all military emissions from the kyoto protocol. in the letter, cheney and the said -- erik edstrom, youresponse? >> i think it will be more difficult. i think it is our duty as engaged citizens to apply pressure on our government to

take this existential threat seriously. and if our government fails to step up, we need to be electing new leaders who are going to do the right thing that will change the tides and will actually put forth the effort that is required here because truly, the world depends on it. amy: we will end at their but we will continue to follow this issue. erik edstrom is an afghan war vet, graduate from west point. he studied climate at oxford. his book is "un-american: a soldier's reckoning of our longest war." ramón mejía is inside the cop with grassroots global justice alliance. he is an iraq war that. he has been participating in protests inside and outside the cop in glasgow. and you to crawford, costs of

war project at brown university, and a professor. when we come back, stella moris, the partner julian assange. what is she doing at glasgow as she talks about the hypocrisy of wealthy nations in addressing the climate crisis and what is'' t she and julian assange able to marry? stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: "goodnight everything" by liars. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. we are broadcasting from new york, new jersey, and glasgow. this is climate countdown.

britain's high court is expected to decide in the coming weeks whether to extradite wikileaks founder julian assange to the united states where he faces up to 175 years in prison in the u.s. under the espionage act for publishing classified documents exposing u.s. war crimes in iraq and afghanistan. julian has been jailed in england for 2.5 years. before that, he spent over seven years in the ecuadorian embassy in london, where he had been granted political asylum. we are joined now by julian's partner stella moris. she has traveled to glasgow as part of her campaign to free julian assange, as well as to highlight how wikileaks has revealed evidence of how corporations and states have undermined the goals of prior climate summits. stella spoke on monday at the people's summit in glasgow, which is organized by the cop26 coalition. stella moris, welcome to democracy now!

talk about why you have come to glasgow. what is your message? >> hi, amy. i am here because i'm here to rally support for julian and raise awareness of the extraordinarily wealth of information that wikileaks has published about the climate over the years and the archive of wikileaks just becomes more and more relevant every year that passes. there are thousands and thousands of emails and documents that document not only , for example, how the melting ice caps sparked his grandma for the arctic like the scramble for africa for arctic oil and minerals, but also, for example, about how shell had infiltrated the nigerian government and shell executive vice president boasted to the u.s. embassy that they had people in every

ministry in the nigerian government and that a jury government wasn't aware that shell exactly what was going on in positions were being taken in shaping -- how they were being taken. really, the wikileaks archives is quite an extraordinary tool for activists, academics, people working in this area, to be able to understand the relationship between the statement of fossil fuel companies, how those interests are intertwined, the fact there is no bright line between many of these states and the fossil fuel industry, and in fact, there is a revolving door and that the goals of the summit are frustrated by this reality. juan: could you talk about back in the copenhagen climate change summit cop 15, julian's

revelation, how the u.s. government was seeking dirt on nations opposing its policies and views on how to do with climate change? could you remind our audience about some of the revelations back then? >> julian was axley in copenhagen for the cup 2015, and wikileaks published draft negotiation, the draft document and it was revealed through wikileaks cables that the u.s. was spying on delegates, finding dirt on delegates and basically bribing countries into watering down their positions -- which defeated the purpose of the climate talks and really in order to achieve meaningful change, need -- wikileaks allows

understand and how that compromise takes place and how these interests are defeating the purpose of these summits. amy: i think at the cop and it copenhagen, it was the first time we came in contact with julian. of course, interviewed him a number of times afterward. people can go to democracynow.org for those interviews inside the ecuadorian embassy come outside at a public event, and also speaking to him from here inside the embassy. stella, if you can talk about how you take these revelations are playing into the demand by the u.s. for julian to be extradited to the united states, and explain the latest with his case. the u.s. assange if he is tried in the united states, you could

be imprisoned in australia? look, these revelations i was just talking about are part of the publications that julian is indicted over. he faces 175 years for publishing the truth, for making this information that is indisputably in the public interest available to the public. and the u.s. government under trump took the unprecedented steps to criminalize journalism, to criminalize receiving information from a journalistic source and publishing that to the public. so this is an extraordinary overstep on the trump administration at the biden administration is still going along with, incredibly. julian had -- sorry, the u.s. lost the case in january and two days before trump left office,

the trumpet administration launched its appeal under bill barr. the appeal was heard on the 27th and 20th of october. there is been some major development since the summer. we were able to introduce a bombshell story that came out in late september about how the cia under mike pompeo have plotted to assassinate, kidnap, and rendition julian from the embassy. the u.k. courts now stand confronted with the fact can they really extradite julian to the country that plotted to kill him? juan: what are the next steps? for those who have not been following his case in our audience, what are the next steps in the court proceedings in the u.k.? >> well, julian was arrested on

april 11, 2019, after this extraordinary campaign the cia had rolled out from the moment basically that pompeo came into office, wikileaks published both seven, the biggest cia leak in history. the cia then plotted out how to take revenge on julian, partly my for example, plotted to assassinate him and kidnap him but also to roll out a pr campaign and planted false information, false stories in the media to create the climate for his arrest. he was arrested april 2019 after a barrage of false stories have been published for almost a year and he has been in belmarsh prison ever since, for over 2.5 years while this outrageous case

goes through the u.k. courts. the u.k. opposed his getting bail in january, so he remains in prison on remand, and convicted. we expect a decision later on this year before christmas, most likely, and it could be within weeks. amy: let me ask you about more of the connection between the climate and war released by the we could ask documents. -- i the wikileaks documents. you have a diplomat writing assisting yet detailed report or diplomatic cable revealing the extent to which the water supply and surrounding environment in iraq had been heavily contaminated by oil, toxic and radioactive materials. if you could talk about that and

how the iraq war logs, the afghan logs, these are military logs that are released. these are not peace activists writing about what they think is happening, it is documenting what is happening on the ground. >> that's right. wikileaks has published -- it is not just the cables. wikileaks has published since 2006, since the inception, many, many millions of documents, original documents, including the report about an eight air base burn pits, which was releasing toxic gas into the air base and basically harming u.s. soldiers and iraqis alike. wikileaks has published many

examples and studies about the impact of armed conflict on the environment. another aspect which wikileaks has shed light on is how corporations have been spying on activists. with the explosion of the private intelligence industry and the extraordinary resources that the fossil fuel industry has in which it is able to hire these private spy companies, they are able to spy on journalists and activists. we have seen pegasus an example of how this happens. amy: we did -- juan: in february 2016, wikileaks published a trove of documents that exposed serious corruption and environmental degradation, central african republic, from multinational corporations that were involved

in the extracting minerals there. could you talk about that and the impact that had? >> well, i'm not particularly familiar with that publication. i know bp, for example, covered up -- they covered up a massive blowout just months before the deepwater horizon catastrophic disaster in the mexican golf. so there is an enormous wealth of information, of documents, about every single country and about these climate negotiates from the inside, how the u.s. was manipulating and driving smaller -- arriving smaller countries, delegates, someone. i encourage everyone who is involved and who is interested in our climate to go to the wikileaks archives and search

for their specific companies. there are tens of thousands of references to the major oil companies. and to also -- it is also searchable by country and so on. amy: stella moris come on sunday you tweeted -- "julian and i are trying to get married, but what should be a straightforward process and a sacred right is being illegally interfered with by sinister elements of the state. blocking us from exercising our basic right to a family life is harassment. it's illegal, and it's wrong." can you explain -- you are also an attorney -- how and why you have been prevented from getting married to julian? you also the mother to two of your and julian's children. >> it is a good question.

why is the u.k. standing in the way of our getting married? this is our decision. it is no one else's business but ours. and even this little thing is being interfered with. i approached the prison in may asking what steps i had to take. i got an initial response, but nothing after that. then julian put in a formal request a month ago to the prison asking for the prison's governor to authorize belmarsh with the marriage and received no response. we booked the council registrar to come in to receive our notice we were getting married, and the prison did not give us in response until just the afternoon before the registrar was due to come in saying they referred the matter to the crown prosecution service. the crown prosecution service represents the united states in the extradition case, so

essentially, the u.s. is giving a veto in relation to whether we can get married. it is completely outrageous, so we are suing the u.k. government. amy: how is julian emotionally, psychologically? you are one of the few people who gets to see him. can you talk about what those meetings are like, where you meet him in this maximum prison in belmarsh? >> well, we meet in a really big visitors hall where the other prisoners are also meeting their families. at the moment, it is only immediate family who can see him. i see him regularly every week. he is really struggling. he is extremely thin. it is really taking a toll on him. every day is a struggle. there is no end in sight. this can go on for years potentially or it could also

finish quickly and he could be extradited to the u.s. before the summer, so there is such uncertainty and it is so outrageous that he is not free. amy: the judge cited suicide possibility. i hate to ask you that question. >> well, the reason the u.k. blocks this extradition is under grounds of oppression. so it would be oppressive to extradite him. extraditing him would be tantamount to sending him to a debt. and that is because they are driving him to take his life because he has endured what no person should have to endure. the u.n. special rubber tour on torture has said he is being psychologically tortured. his physical health is there's they deteriorate in. if he dies, it is because they are torturing him to death. amy: stella moris, thank you so

much for being with us, the partner of the imprisoned wikileaks founder julian assange in glasgow as part of her campaign to free julian and show how wikileaks revealed evidence of corporations and states undermining the goals of prior climate