hello and welcome to cross talk or all things considered i'm peter lavelle on this edition of the program we discuss one and one issue only the fate of julian assange and the fate of journalism itself. talking astonishing i'm joined by my guests here in moscow is a very morrow he's the founder of the center of political strategic analysis trap well and in france we cross with john laughlin he is

a lecturer in political philosophy at i says the catholic university are gentlemen cross-talk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate let me go first to france a job and i was reading an excellent article by chris hedges which was a republican consortium news title chris hedges the moderate martyr room of julian assange is julian assange a martyr a martyr for journalism a martyr for the law maybe a martyr for justice go ahead. i think there's absolutely no doubt about that i mean we know from the moment that he left the ecuadorian embassy in london that his original claim made seven years ago that he was trying to escape extradition to the united states was true even though all his enemies denied this the extradition demand was produced immediately he was released from ecuadorian asylum and they you also know peter better than anyone the video of that moment when he came

out of the embassy door came of course from rockley from r.t. because they put a life feed on watching i think for about a week and they made a lot of money from being able to sell this this short video clip the fact that r.t. got that scoop if you like got those images is itself deeply symbolic because i hard to say that not only was it profitable for r.t. but it was such an immense propaganda coup for russia or counter propaganda coup to see someone who is a journalist who has published true information not fake news it was published information about war crimes about political shit gannon incans being bundled into a police car and effectively bundled on the way to the united states of america exercising extra torah terril extraterritorial jurisdiction in another country is so deeply shocking i think to anyone has any sense of. media

freedom that it only makes it even the more disgusting when we see newspapers like the guardian or their daily mail yet danced on a sand sanjay's legal grave and saying what a horrible person is because the issue here obviously is not whether he is a horrible person or whether you agree with him it is a matter of media freedom and in previous. programs. we've discussed the legislative framework that's being put in in europe right to resist but to restrict media freedom here we see what i talked about a week or two ago the use of the criminal law the glass of information and this is what we call dictatorship you know exhibit a joining us is an australian citizen his own government didn't lift a finger no surprise there we can weeks is an operation that is not based in the united states. the department of justice now is making

a claim and then it has its reach is global if if the department of justice determines that you have committed some kind of crime s. be nice for example against united states you could be prosecuted anywhere in the world. to underline that on the contrary on manning or on the snowden. never work for. us services. is not a twitter of anything and listening to. that is a member of the known state intelligence agency it's completely crazy and. of course i couldn't agree more that using is. were not only for. fighting on the economic call point of view but even of fodder for the. fighting against of freedom of speech it's a it's incredible but you know i'm quite disappointed again by by britain trump

because he used to says. because he told her against the clinton. gang you know you know it was really quite amazing when you're a week you weeks to i know nothing about we always a very coward as disappointed variables as you want to go back to john in france the interesting thing is here too is that i see that. the united states because it no longer is able to control the global narrative it is lashing out at the institutions that can challenge that narrative and that is weak i want to reiterate over and over again not one thing that we keep leaks ever released was everything was authentic unlike the major news outlets that dominate the western world they have become stenographers of power and joined us on people like julian assange

have said no there is something to see behind the curtain they want to put the curtain back in place john. well can you imagine what the reaction would be in the west if alex a novelle me were bundled from his hiding place into a russian police car and prosecuted and sent to prison for his so-called blogging against corruption as we know we've had this narrative now for years that novelli is a lone voice on the internet denouncing putin's corruption the image that is presented of alec's intervale me in the west is precisely what julian assange has in fact been doing in the west in a much more important way because he's been as you say peter publishing information which is true he's been publishing documents he's been publishing secret documents but he hasn't been publishing some narrative he's just been literally publishing documents and we've been treated now as i say for decades into this topic and are

about bloggers standing up to power this fairy tale about people like never but there are people you know in similar fairytale positions all over the world presented as great freedom fighters by the united states and its western allies you know when we say that you're here just for a second and i think it's very interesting to people don't know about it because if they're not told but then bradley manning did approach major western news outlets about the information that he had at that time and they all said no then he went to me because the major news outlets no longer perform a journalistic purpose their purpose is to maintain in further official narratives john well we knew that we saw that when the guardian which of course originally published some of the wiki leaks documents then agreed to sit down with the secret intelligence services of britain otherwise known as m i six and to destroy together

in front of the officials of m i six their hard drives containing this information that. act confirmed that the guardian is an m i six it's an m i six outlets a number of its journalists work for m i six and produce narratives concocted by a british government one of them writes a lot about russia i'm sure you know who i mean yeah. that is the that is the truth about these newspapers and that is the read all other media outlets and that is the reason why as you say then bradley manning did not have any success with that so you know we are in a situation of the most breathtaking hypocrisy you know you know i guess what's most disappointing for me being a journalist myself is that so few journalists actually stand up with a profession and you know. if you have a long enough memory and if you want to remember we can weeks was considered

a profoundly professional excellent publisher now now he's not even a journalist he is just as you pompei or as words you know it is an extension of someone else's foreign intelligence it's amazing how people have flipped i guess it's because of their material interests not because they have any integrity or worse in my opinion you will see london and washington continue to lead the rest of the world to the rest of the world it won't turn to anything. unfortunately i remember when the killings published very interesting information on the on the u.s. . foreign department. especially the influence on the under french policy. point of view you know the to encourage the policy to encourage immigration policy and it doesn't it didn't was

it didn't. have any any use actually nobody use it we. as in french as in england or in the united states or the information from rica because they are known by means and on by people like me who want to know where to ellie happens but it's useful actually said the big problem in my opinion and and again scandal treatment of of mr assad to want to help. you know it. before your the break here i mean we keep leaks came into being it filled the nice that was absolutely necessary is to hold power to a clout and that is why his greatest crime is holding power to account because i think exactly what journalists were supposed to do that's what the fourth estate was supposed to do they don't do it anymore it was left to him to do it and now the state wants to destroy that go ahead john well i mean we all remember don't we

those horrendous images of iraqi civilians being shot dead from a helicopter which were part of that wiki leaks revelations in the early years i mean genuinely shocking evidence of war crimes but i want to make a point that a developer point made just now about extraterritoriality because as we know from this case and from other cases in commercial law for example when the american justice department imposed a multi-billion dollar fine on a french bank and as we know from the way that the american government uses international criminal justice to further its foreign policy ends but of course never allows international tribunals like the international criminal court that indeed forbids them to have any say over america we can see that this extraterritoriality is a one way street is it is the american empire without i'm not trying to be

polemical it literally is the use of american law in this case. through by means of an extradition treaty but with an ally which will inevitably unfortunately comply with it it's the use of american law to further american policy including american security policy in clear violation ok joe and i got to jump in here thank you for joining us here now we're going to go to a short break now and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on a science day with arnold. but politicians do something to them. they put themselves on the line they get accepted or rejected. so when you want to be president. or somehow want to be rich

. that's it right to be for us this is what the four three in the morning can't be good that i'm interested always in the water using the how. to. best suit. my body told me that i belong with the boys but my thoughts my mind with that i belong with the girls. under the surgery starts to be of any particular. football person's doctor. i was born a male had a sex change when i was thirty years old. i've now been living as a woman for twenty eight years and i fully regret this. my problem should have gone away from it by now but they hadn't so these surgeries are nothing more than

plastic surgery i've had several female to male friends and you look at it and you just go oh god you paid for that it's horrible nobody can change genders is impossible. is delusional it's a mental illness. this is now one of my bones from flesh of my flesh she shall be called woman because she was taken out in from a. you know world of big parts of the lot and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that made stream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door on the path and shouting past each other. it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now for watching closely watching the hawks.

welcome back to cross talk we're all things considered i'm peter lavelle reminder we're discussing julian assange. right now we're joined by alexander macarius in london he is a writer on legal affairs as well as the editor in chief of the duran dot com welcome to the program alex how how is the press reacting to this story about julian assigned as a rest. particularly how roughly r t's a news agency picked that up first kudos for us and what is this the general reaction to all of this i know break hovers over everything but this is

a very important story go ahead in london if it's actually pushed the breaks the news to one side it's been heavily cupboards there's been a lot of all and some jealousy corruptly getting the pictures the british media are frankly be jealous that. you got their first well done now adds to the media coverage it's been heavily cupboards very very great criticism some of it actually i think well the dishes criticism all judean a sound and a lot of carbury each other tents which are coming through bricks to get the swedes to room. the rape allegations you've got to. go. i mean there's even seventy m.p.'s that written a letter about this basically to say that you know that if they're in if there's

rape allegations are revived which they haven't been of course they should be given cry all rootie and it was the reason that that is you can't do the next part of your question some barrister meant a lot of embarrassment about the way this whole thing is laid out i think a negative reaction from many many people so by reviving the rape allegations people are able to say well you know we're not very keen on this extradition to the us but we still think the julian assange is not a good person who has a lot to answer for so we can still criticise him so i see it personally as an attempt to basically damage julian assange and his reputation and i have no doubt that it will be to the united states that he will be extradited if he's extradited at all and not to sweden which is no enthusiasm for reviving the rape allegations which would draw out partly because he

was you know in the in the ecuadorian embassy but also after a jury in a sound provided a very detailed statement in which he responded to the allegations which very few people seem to be aware of noise it's amazing to me to british wanky the swedes to open up on one of their investigation to. trials because it's only a question of putting him in jail of or executed him but it's a vote destroying is whole and he made. his decision politics through smear i mean all of these people that are criticizing him on both sides of the atlantic they refused to comment on what he actually did reveal war crime. in corruption they don't want to talk about what he did they want to talk about his character i don't give him i don't care one way or another about his character and

this is a perfect media ploy to destroy someone and to ignore what fact is actually happening if you look at the french media it's more neutral i can say because it's not so important because for for us but. really it's wrong because the french media the french journalist should have defended assad from the beginning but they don't do it because in don't remember that we france was ashamed because we stopped the plane the president plane because we were sinking that is going to take to take us out with him so again there is as you say there is a u.s. umpire an empire of. we are all some countries supposed to follow this. not only for britain but for france not doing that see anything to try to protect which is to push to be the grounds of western civilization is the freedom of speech

and the freedom of what we're seeing it is true it's absolutely right i mean the u.s. likes and its allies like to export their values but they don't live up to their own values at the same time here. it's you're a lawyer it seems to me that the d.o.j. is they're just rather gys in how to create a legal strategy again it is a this is a hostile prosecution it is not based on facts that we know i mean talk about transparency that is that synonymous with the we keep leaks transparency i don't see the same kind of transparency from the prosecution go ahead what they did exactly and one of the things that i salute you storm me is that you see so many journalists around the world cheering this prosecution on because they're. hostility to a sound and yet of course what this is at least as i read it is in attempt to get round the protections to journalists are provided by the law

a one what us thought the journalists putting aside whatever feelings they may have about a sound which would see that as a direct attack bond them the committee to protect journalists has made that very point by the way so have various people like glenn greenwald and every journalist should be concerned about this prosecution it is a very serious case it's been brought out of time it alleges a conspiracy where the facts are incoherent and amorphous alan dershowitz his words not mine by the way and on top of everything else in order to prove that conspiracy. they have to in c. was relying heavily on the testimony of. who is not actually

providing testimony and he's being kept in indefinite in detention until she does which i would have thought is also a very troubling thing and savvy is absolutely right stay when he talks about the collapse of western values since when in the west how we've been keeping people in indefinite detention until they just testify against someone else i mean we are slowly slipping it seems to me into moscow trials territory smears against the houston and pressure on other people to get them to testify very bad very bad in every way but it's certainly sets a precedent here in a very bad example going to lead to a the only reason which was given us a new situation for. mr assad is that is supposed to have help many to find a post who has words who do you really side so it's some sing toward to any one be

any any kind of evidence would be given for that as well as we've. given in a jail for maybe twenty twenty five years or i mean it's this is the standard if this is the standard then indictments should be made against the washington post the guardian c.n.n. all the rest of them ok because that's when publishers what they want more because of what julian assange was doing was not illegal it was illegal for their bradley manning he was. in uniform in the service yard and later chelsea paid a very high price for that ok and it was all under the obama administration i mean ministration that was had a war against whistleblowers put chelsea manning into confinement even under conditions of torture and then they all pat themselves on the back by giving clemency ok and now this. witch hunt against.

whistleblowers continues and that's when i go back to that's the whole point isn't it really though it is a chilling effect there to make sure that no one ever does it no one challenges the empire and gets nearer to the next well. we can't exactly to the point that you may grant the beginning peter which is exactly that this is exactly what the purpose is it used to people don't want to discuss things the julian assange and wiki leaks have exposed crimes in iraq the reading of the democratic primary process all of those things are no longer being talked about what we're being talked about are all these other things which are basically an attempt to discredit his. grady weekly leaks and make visual merits use the challenge you know alexander said because what i thought was really interesting

when i watched all of the american cable with the exception of tucker carlson on fox news all of them almost without exception are trying to reignite the rush you get to coax ok the connection between of psychology of the russians there is no one scintilla of evidence that that ever happened let me go to exactly i mean they're trying to again change the subject not what he report that would be leaks release but what kind of bad company doing this i'm supposing we have i think the aim is to conceal a zoo with a nice wish and want to world the world because you know. before the meeting which we between the old and kennedy in sixty one. french intelligence service the general that the cia is listening to him and so he said good for them. but the problem no is the u.s. administration as many so many seeing so many murders so many must murder so many

bad deed to conceal that they have no choice but finding any kind of had you know a new or creation against russia against the russia today against of course we killings and as you know it will go on the courts are going to continue again to littering all the country in the world what to do to protect human rights tried to put their feet in a speech but for them because our shows and by i don't know who. is this is basically pentagon papers two point zero. and the supreme court ruled in favor of the maine washington post and specifically it is not trafficking and in stolen government material it was it was in the public. interest that the people learn this is no different but the difference is the differences back in one nine hundred seventy one your journalists uniformly stood beside her

ok and in this case they were uniformly against the last ten seconds of that is this is crazy because father is in the least if we are in the world the example to follow is the watergate because it was a question of sending. the function of president but no this example is no more for anybody you know this is much much bigger because its impact is immense and it is setting a precedent that is in danger of the next have scenting an idea that's it that's all the time we have gentlemen many thanks my guest here in moscow london and in france and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time remember.

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the right. huge blazing cathedral in paris bringing down the roof and. two towers have been saved investigators say it appears to have started by accident when the scaffolding core fired sort of repair work letters of condolence and support for all the world as france reels from the shock of the. other headlines with a song is now in jail foreign politicians hold a media conference outside to show their support for a man they see as a hero of the media's future over the whistleblower. and human rights organizations cry foul author of palestinian activist is denied entry to the united states.