Only British judges can keep Julian Assange from the American legal wolves eager for their prey.The Australian founder of Wikileaks has aired plenty of American dirty laundry, and the U.S. wants him in their hands. In two days of hearings, U.S. lawyers told the British High Court to turn him over, and in the coming weeks the judges will decide.Since 2006, Wikileaks has published more than ten million documents, including many confidential or restricted ones related to war, spying, and corruption. Vault 7, a 2017 Wikileaks disclosure of CIA cyberwarfare and electronic surveillance capabilities, was predated by many other important revelations.A 2003 U.S. army manual for the Camp Delta prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba was brought to light in 2007, revealing policies to hide some prisoners from Red Cross inspectors and isolate new prisoners for two weeks so they would be more compliant to interrogators.Later, Wikileaks published 570,000 messages sent within 24 hours after the September 11, 2001 attacks between Pentagon, FBI, FEMA, and New York Police Department officials. This was followed by damning video footage of a 2007 attack from a U.S. helicopter in Baghdad, Iraq that killed nine people, including a Reuters photographer and his driver.In 2010, Assange’s organization published 400,000 classified military documents from the war in Iraq and 90,000 documents on engagement in Afghanistan, revealing civilian deaths, the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, and Iraq’s funding of militants in Iraq.“Cablegate,” the publication of 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables from 1966 to 2010, showed the U.S. had conducted secret drone strikes in Yemen, the U.S. tried to get information on United Nations representatives, a push by Saudi Arabia's royal family to have the U.S. strike Iran and the depiction of Russia as a "virtual mafia state."The 2016 release of nearly 20,000 Democratic National Committee emails and 2,000 emails from Clinton campaign manager John Podesta showed the DNC favoured Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders and that DNC Chairwoman Donna Brazile had given the Clinton campaign debate questions in advance. The emails suggested Clinton said one thing in public and another thing to Wall Street bankers in private. The emails included many examples of pedophile code words, leading to the pizzagate scandal.If the U.S. deep state had a dartboard, Assange’s face would be on it. It’s no wonder he’s locked up.In 2010, Sweden put out a European arrest warrant for Assange, on suspected of rape of a lesser degree, unlawful coercion and multiple cases of sexual molestation. He sought and gained asylum at the Embassy of Ecuador in London in the name of political persecution at a time the U.S. sought his extradition. Assange was released by the embassy in 2019 and promptly taken to jail under the bail act. Sweden dropped its investigation as the US unsealed indictments against Assange saying he violated the Espionage Act. His extradition to the US was granted by then-UK home secretary Priti Patel in 2022, but held up by legal manouvers, leading to the recent hearings.Lawyers for the U.S. say Assange encouraged and assisted Chelsea Manning, a US intelligence analyst, to obtain cables that authorities say jeopardized American lives. In past criminal proceedings, lawyers for Assange said this was not so.In the recent hearings, U.S. lawyer Clair Dobbin KC said Wikileaks publications had "profound consequences" for named sources in the documents who had provided information to the US, such as facing arrests, the loss of assets, threats and harassment.Dobbin said Assange “created a grave and imminent risk that the human sources named therein would suffer serious physical harm."But Assange’s lawyers say it’s the Wikileaks founder whose life would be at stake in an extradition. They allege the U.S. had a “breath-taking” plan to kill or kidnap Assange at the embassy. They allege the thirst for his extradition is politically motivated and point to a US-UK treaty that says extraditions are not to happen for such reasons.By some accounts, a conviction for Assange in the U.S. could leave him with a jail sentence of 175 years. His wife Stella fears that, like Jeffrey Epstein, he won’t survive jail. Assange’s former lawyer John Jones died April 18, 2016 after stepping in front of a morning train at a train station following a bout with depression.On the face of it, releasing confidential documents that could potentially endanger lives is an ostensibly good reason for Assange’s extradiction, conviction and imprisonment. However, the larger context shows that for many reasons, that would be a bad thing. On the whole, Assange has been a force for good. Besides, it's doubtful the Biden regime cares about protecting the good guys.Consider the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Lt. Col. Douglas Macgregor advised President Donald Trump that the U.S. should pull out in winter when Taliban insurgents would be more interested in staying warm by a fire than rallying its forces for a coup. Instead, the withdrawal wrapped up August 30, 2021. The last U.S. plane took off, leaving allies and billions of dollars of equipment behind for a renewed Taliban regime ready to punish any collaborators with the previous government.Light is the greatest disinfectant, and Wikileaks shines more of it than most. The video showing an American helicopter pilot successfully begging to shoot people with dubious justification is something the world and his victims’ families deserved to know. The corruption and duplicity of Hillary Clinton and the Democrats was even more worthy of disclosure.In 2016, Assange wrote, “A vote today for Hillary Clinton is a vote for endless, stupid war.” Thanks in part to Wikileaks disclosures, Donald Trump won. That act alone set the deep state back four years, led to employment rates not seen since 1969, and made the globalists cringe.Klaus Schwab once said, “If you have nothing to hide, you have no reason to be afraid.” However, many nefarious and powerful actors do have things to hide, and are afraid of Assange.The world is better place, not worse one, for what Assange has done. I hope he can do even more.
