china's building two point one billion dollars a year. but don't let you know more than this one and only boom. hello and welcome to cross talk for all things considered i'm peter lavelle has finally happened julian assange was arrested within the ecuadorian embassy in london is widely expected he will be extradited to the united states to stand trial the expected charges are espionage this is truly a dark day for journalists and journalists.

across talking julian assange i'm joined by my guest joe laurie in washington he's the editor in chief of consortium news dot com and author of how i lost by hillary clinton with the forward by julian assange also in washington we have brain mcgovern he is a former cia analyst and co-founder of veteran intelligence professionals for sanity and in new york we cross the sara flounders she is co-director of international action center as well as author and an anti-war activists all right crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciated joe let me go to you first because you're very familiar with julian assange and joined us on the road the forward to your book what are your feelings right now because you know from my perspective in in the business of journalism this is one of the darkest days of journalism in my lifetime and i'm going to remember the state for the rest of my life no matter what happens that's how passionate i feel about this this is a crushing move against a profession that has already been crushed so much. over the last few years go

ahead joe i think it's a dark day not just for journalism but for everyone else for the entire world really for all the populations of the of all countries that depend on a vibrant media a critical media that can bring them information about what their governments are really up to that will challenge them and that's of course where we stayed they provided the information that the governments and did not want the public to know particular about crimes and corruption and this is why they got him arrested today all the other stuff about bell skipping in and previously about the sexual allegations it's read all of that was the lead up to get him to go to this courtroom in alexandria virginia so he could stand trial for exposing the secrets of governments it was indeed a very stark and nightmarish image of seeing him truly and taken out of the front door of the embassy with a ruptly camera there this is what we call here in the u.s. a perp walk they wanted us to see him being pulled out and the fact is that the population has been dispersed misinformed disinformed distracted about the

significance of this issue now it's the press that has destroyed itself in many ways in this story because they have turned on this man that they once profited from one who served their partisan interests when he exposed crimes of the bush administration when he exposed corruption with hillary clinton they turned on him in a dime they're still pushing this rubbish story that he helped trump get into the white house that he's somehow a russian stooge and a kremlin agent all this nonsense even though collusion story has collapsed so it's the press that has failed the public here and they have already the corporate media i'm talking about they have already destroyed themselves in many ways they had to have to really find this man and be cheering today you know his arrest is quite disturbing you know sara new york. i have to wonder if the guardian the new york times the washington post c.n.n. a missing d.c. are they going to be held account of they going to face espionage charges because they disseminated so much of what we see leaks. released to the public and they

profited from it also joe is right here because we keep leaks at the end of the day is a publisher but unlike other publishers it was never proven to be peddling fake news go ahead sarah. well they they reported on it and exposed some of those crimes because it was already out to the whole world and really what was exposed are the dark crimes that the u.s. has committed in its wars two hundred thousand cables video footage images and that should be the response of anyone who is challenging right now this this brutal really this arrest of a songe and that is let's go back and bring a revive bring forward again what it was that wiki leaks exposed what was in those cables let's show again those videos where civilians were helicopter gunships let's show again the torture let's show again guantanamo if they're going to pull

juliana songe out of the. embassy absolutely an outrageous crime then let's show again all of their crimes i think that can be the only response the only legitimate response is to show that there is no freedom of press now major corporate media reported that at the time and then they sort of let it go to sleep well this is revived it again and i think we have a responsibility to talk about what wiki leaks contributed to this and what chelsea manning all of those documents and she has really suffered for this and is now in prison again there should really be a campaign for her immediate release this is after a pardon it shows how than dicked of they are and how they want to use intimidation and i think we have to refuse to be intimidated and it is

a real role for the media to challenge this again and bring forward once again remind people what joy in a songes contribution is and he made a big contribution to truth to freedom of the media to for. in the press ok sarah says we need a campaign but that campaign isn't going to come from the media because they're all cowards ok they've turned their back on this man because we keep leaks came into existence because the media failed the legacy media failed in its mission to inform the people of to of of hard truths and showing how government works and doesn't work here so what can we expect to happen next once she is on american soil. well bottom line is it's only us there never has been any other we are the press we are the media the fourth estate is dead it used to speak of the fourth estate is be more of a now instead what did i mean by that well most people know that annenberg the

problem and in british basement in the late eighteenth century coined the phrase he said you know we have three states here in parliament two in the two in commons one in lords and but there's one estate that's far more important there are all the others it's the fourth estate it's you gentlemen up there in the press gallery because it's you who keep us honest with you government run amuck now fast forward fast forward from the late eighteenth century you know see what's what's become of the afford to say no are no more review are to the magna carta or the bill of rights in the constitution there is no press freedom and so it's a very to me the mission or this as it goes down lately now i just. that when we gave julian asuncion wiki leaks the sam adams award

for charity that was actually over two thousand and ten and after he released the f.b.i. and the iraq or law it's what did they show they show what crimes by the united states military director orszag in the white house what was the reaction very little reaction to that that was pretty much crashed but when people started sick and old people be hurt by these disclosures the secretary of defense last. said that tiger said reports that u.s. troops or or anyone else has been harmed by this are quote significantly well or off heriot. so there is no there is no counter or. you know even no counter argument such a good point you know joe you know what we have now is that we saw we saw this show of force of dragging julia songe out of the ecuadorian embassy but he told me

something that they don't want me to think it shows me that these the national security state is actually quite weak and timid in its ability to communicate its position of of why its lee illegitimately has power because it shows that certainly the powers that be show themselves to be weaker in weaker because they're run able to be able to engage in discussion and in debate and maybe argument but they didn't i the other side they are only right and people must follow because look at they did to julian assange we can do it to you that's the mission they're sending but that's somebody that's that's power that it at its weakest point because it only it relies on coercion not argument go ahead joe. absolutely that's authoritarianism right there what we saw coming only sora julian sachs dragged out of that embassy and the public being shut out because the corporate media again does not inform and takes the wrong side they take the side of the state not the side of the people and the governed they're supposed to serve not the governors in fact they're weak as

well on their argument in this case because the indictment was finally sealed just about an hour or two after assad was pulled out of the embassy this indictment that the government had denied was in existence for ten years sorry for about nine years from two thousand and ten and what they are charging him with is very important and i think it's a weak case which is why chelsea manning is in jail because they are not going to charge him under section three of the espionage act which is mere possession and dissemination of classified information that's on the books they could have done that but that would be a threat to all of the press because every major media. publishes classified information so they're going for the. conspiracy to commit espionage charge which means they are claiming he helped chelsea manning to break a password code to get the documents so that she could then transfer them to him as his source and that we can exclude publish and then rests on a conversation online that manning had with a person under

a different handle that the government is organ was julian assange but it may be hard for them to prove that she was actually discussing these who have how to break this password to get in to get those documents now all investigative journalist work with their sources to cajole them to help them to help them get the information and go back all the time to your sources and do what you can to help them get that in this case the government's going to try the u.s. government try to build a case that a songe helped steal the documents not publishing the documents they didn't go down that route as they knew was what the obama administration called the new york times problem they couldn't have the times and the other papers be libel for the same kind of prosecution so that's what this case is going to rest on now manning was brought in to a grand jury to testify on that very issue and she refused so they don't have a strong case maybe it could say show us that they needed her back again to stay some more because they don't have enough and her a lawyers have a very interesting strategy they're saying if there's an indictment already and now

we know that there is now this grand jury testimony could be used in trial if there's already an indictment then you cannot and have a grand jury testimony when which there's no defense counsel present there's no public president secret so they're arguing that she should have gone in there because they want to use this testimony later on in trial and they can't do that they are only using and you know i guess which was already done i got to jump in here we're going to go to a short break and out of that short break we'll continue our discussion on julian assange and stay with r.t. . i remain very much opposed to military intervention i am opposed to it because i fundamentally do not believe it is in u.s. interests there are several issues at play in venezuela one is the terrible terrible humanitarian state into which then israel has fallen under the regime of

the first two were childish and now new questions that alone in my opinion is not a justification for an american invasion. of. u.s. veterans who come back from war often tell the same stories. were going after the people who were killing civilians they were not interested in the wellbeing of their own soldiers either there are already several generations of them so i just got this memo from the circular defense off that says we're going to attack and destroy their governments and seven countries in five years americans pay for the wars with them money on those without knives if we were willing to go into harm's way and willing to risk being killed for a war then surely we can risk some discomfort for an easy miss

for. most people have this picture of the i'll take each day pull changing rather remold to part of the world it is probably the part of the planet where we have seen in geo political terms in economic terms in shine different terms the more she. talks formative and the picture. will affect the future much more than what has happened on the european continent on undoing all the post of what. welcome back to cross talk where all things are considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing julian assange.

ok let's go back to new york a number of legal experts explained to me that it's quite possible that the impending trial of julian assange could be all it could be all behind closed doors could be all secret and that we would really never know the workings of such a trial in even to the point where the state would present national evidence that would be considered of national security importance where julian assigns and his or her lawyer would never be able to see it because of its secretive value and then it would up to essentially be up to a judge to render a decision which we would never really know because it's national security you can't explain what evidence was being used to mean that sounds orwellian i mean truly so if it were to work out go ahead sarah well all of this is are well again

all of this is based on support keeping it all secret that is the real crime that joy committed refusing to allow the crimes to be held secret anymore and everyone who in any way wants to defend julianna songe or admires his courage i think it's the obligation now to bring up again because it it's gone quiet after seven years bring up again what it was that wiki leaks exposed to bring it forward again what chelsea manning showed and those videos show those videos again show the torture. again show the shooting of journalists and iraq again this is how we can counter it because if we accept the secrecy that's what they want to bring back complete secrecy control of the media and they're demanding that the corporate media who is already totally housebroken who's already defending in

every way an empire that is declining that syndic a that can no longer has credibility the corporate media is very much in the u.s. is absolutely part of that secrecy a little bit came forward because it was known around the world and there's lots there's hundreds of thousands of sites that are alternative media that can bring this forward and that's where we should look we should not look to media that already plays a role of conspiracy in an empire that is based on crime and that is based on secrecy so i think we have to refuse to accept the secrecy and bring forward what we already know and support a songe and certainly support chelsea manning who is in prison right now under terrible conditions after a pardon because she is standing up to a grand jury which is a very heroic position and again that's

a secret proceeding that they're trying to put chelsea manning through so it's want more and more secrecy and we need to challenge the secrecy by exposing what they want to keep a lid on and the lid is coming off in a hundred ways around the world i think it's an obligation of everyone to do more to pry that lid off if you have real fear brianna worry about this side but this case is melissa crimes but this case is really about intimidating one particular individual in a concept it is a reality into not only freedom of speech in radio i mean there's the the powers that be are and aren't refused to be intimidated exactly but. i think other people will be in box that's my very point ray i mean this is really the ultimate chilling effect let me go to ray it is the ultimate chilling effect and it was done in broad daylight they didn't hide it they're actually quite proud of marching into a sovereign territory of another country which of i suppose accord or relinquish

that shame on them. and the breaking of international law and an asylum agreement there's no asylums asylum agreement in the world that could ever be agreed to under a law that limits one speech ok not in the european union and not in the united states for sure intimidation ray that's what it's all about go ahead. well that's right here it's a brutish treatment of anyone who will stand up to the u.s. that mushmouth you know the collateral murder video that's scary very two is very damning it shows the position not only of journalists two for reuters but ten other people in play same it shows the brutalization of the pilots the u.s. pilots that have been taught to be so pro will know what most people don't know is said david finkel big washington post i was with that unit he looked

at tape he washed it any wrote a book called the good soldiers of that specific unit that did this kind of brutality during the surge in iraq that's pointed out in bonnie the few years the near the washington post they're fully cognisant and no one would have known about it were not for chelsea manning giving that tape to julian assange is now this makes the point why is the united states government so upset well it's because we gave leaks has this unique capability to get leaks and what was the most recent damaging leak it was something call a cyber tool a the cia will hold for a more bush bill binney from the n.s.a. or flora and i both think. accounts for how the brain programs showing russia and russian involvement in the d.n.c.

e-mails how they got there we think you know through this but we think it was generated in the cia and this very sophisticated seven hundred million code lots of code all seven that operation left those right across so that's that's really damaging to the cia that's the most. well there actually. you know you know cho i mean i'm glad that ray brought up. meaning because you know i mean there's so much intelligence. ability out there i mean with veeps is a very good example here it's never to i mean i don't even think the motor investigation even tapped into it i think one program on fox news took a mild interest but that was only to protect trump not to go after the truth ok so explain to our viewers i know your answer because i've seen you answer before but explain for my viewers here why does the mainstream media worship the intelligence

community so much yeah there's a big reason and a little reason the big reason is that they are giving legitimacy to establishment that is losing legitimacy as you pointed out earlier peter that they are weak and the corporate media props them up there are an essential ingredient in that to keep people believing that these are legitimately rulers and the second little reason his career as a reporter is want to be close to power they live vicariously through these powerful people they want to be part of the elite they don't understand their role is to be amongst the people to challenge to vet to criticize the powerful so that that's exactly what you want to subject so they're trying to abolish that and have full control over information and here comes the sun publishing documents that they themselves hang themselves with because it's their own words it's their own video that was in that pilots are in the in the pile in the helicopter gunship so they got to stop reporters they continuously say he's not a journalist that's

a key thing here he's something else well he's publishing documents but he's written three or four books he's writes articles he's accepting the documents and putting them out there he's understands what they mean and he tries to explain what they mean and they cannot tolerate this they need these lackey reporters to prop up their legitimacy that is weakened by the truth and. this case by a songe this is the issue you know it's really interesting joe it's the first. for a power to criticize julian assange by not calling him a journalist i mean how does that one of the great ironies of the time ok because they're just a dog for power and they're paid a lot of money to do it and they seem to do it without any moral compass whatsoever ok sarah i mean at the end of the day this is really about. narrowing freedom of speech because you cannot you know it's not that the problem isn't that the government commits crimes that the problem is for these people is that you report

on the governments committing crimes and that's that's the crime here not what they do it's how people like myself julian assange and other people in alternative media still believe that you have to. challenge power and challenge power with arguments ok go ahead sir. well the media today the big corporate media is absolutely losing its legitimacy in terms of its hold on people's minds on people's consciousness and i think we should really take confidence in our own ability because human consciousness is more powerful in terms of historic a big change than repression and even the technology the ability of technology to try to enforce repression it breaks through in unexpected ways and we have to really think how we help that information which we already have break through again

and again and again we have to say this media has no legitimacy its whole role is to simply report on what is a criminal enterprise in the world today that's the role that the us empire that wall street plays it's trying to enforce a straitjacket of only wealth counts only power counts and people all over the world are challenging that and let's bring forward a lot of that material just to show to expose how old they are the crimes that they're willing to commit don't let them put it back in the box don't let them keep it secret if there is going to be any kind of a trial and they want to keep it secret. in in the us if they want to attempt that method then we've got to in every way bring it forth and show what's not being showcased immediately i mean given the media has already been here for

a little bit in a courtroom let me give let me give letting it all down let me give ray the last word thirty seconds ray i'm know you're a man of paper and i know you believe that the truth will prevail convince me that that's going to happen. well you know you have to be patient. stone said. you got to be paired to lose you're going to lose and lose and lose and then one fine day someone who thinks about the truth the way you do wins you have to be patient and you have to. go in knowing that you're going to lose. the important point here reason before is that a sign of students solicit this information from from bradley or josee many. and that he offered it to the new york times offered it to the washington post and they didn't want it so you know well we did what was secretly manning going to do what he did was the next best saying it way too little was and it was weak he looks

all right i'm sorry we brought out of time many thanks to my guests in new york and washington and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at r.t.c. a next time and remember us topples. khalid al how to have an international memorial awards twenty nineteen are now open for entries all media professionals are eligible whether you are a freelance journalist what for all terms of media or part of the global news. participate send us your published works and video or written to go to war dot altie dot com and to now. here's what i can to halt this if. you notice because one of the last we just couldn't stomach a. hundred.

points or seriously do. you think it was national. at the base of the play to talk a little. bit some looks are from the typical seems. to. support school board in these clinics going up to the school is a good deal to lose because there's been. a shooting in the life to be smeared. all over the city. and post someone into believing it because it does a good style if you believe that eighty. join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guests of the

world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you then. you know world of big partisan movies lot and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that mainstream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door on the back and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the troops the time is now for watching closely watching the hawks. that nothing can be. done everything.

that wars are. going on after almost seventy is confined to the ecuadorian embassy in london u.k. police dragged wiki leaks edited. in a song from his once safe haven and place him under arrest. not above the law no hero while the british prime minister and officials praise ecuador for ending a soldier's asylum whistle blowing community brands at a dark day for journalism. its precent mainstay any journalist can be extradited for prosecution in the united states for having published truthful information about the united states is looked.