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Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

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Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

#171
post #160
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they were. Fox News hate democrats. CNN hate Republicans. Assange hated Clinton ever since she said "wouldnt it be easier if we just drone striked him?". He still didnt conceal any leaks in pursuit of that goal and he wasnt a russian spy. Nonetheless, both claims are frequently made in the mainstream media linked to Democrats. They are lies.

He had his own show on Russian state television way back in 2012. He was quite literally being paid by them.

Know of any western TV channels that would offer him a show?

lol I kid. Literally 0% chance CNN will give him one.

Every establishment critic faces the same choice:

1) appear on PressTV or RT

2) face ridiculously hostile interviewers

3) dont appear on TV

Mostly they go for a mix of 1 and 2.

Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are numerous countries in the world that have becomes democracies inspite of the blundering and corruption of the powers that be in the west. Dont use the US and its dysfunction as an excuse please.

Can you list some them? Bonus points if outside Western Europe.

Tunisia.

Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

#173

The interesting bit I didn't know was the article says that Wikileaks did not publish the complete contents of the Vault 7 materials they had. Not sure whether they just published shasums of the bits they didn't, or if they proved some other way they had parts they were holding back as leverage. It's odd to read what was really at stake. Pompeo's team was ready to assasinate Assange in London, and the only thing stop…

> Most people saw how the sausage was made and decided they still liked sausage. I'm not sure that's really true. All of the stuff Snowden and Assange leaked was very much down-played by the popular media - it felt like it was very under-reported and even then with a fair bit of bias. If you ask some people about how they feel now, they'll say that it wouldn't affect them "because they haven't done anything wrong", o…

> Most people saw how the sausage was made and decided they still liked sausage.

> I'm not sure that's really true. All of the stuff Snowden and Assange leaked was very much down-played by the popular media - it felt like it was very under-reported and even then with a fair bit of bias.

It was not at all played down, especially not Snowden, it was rolling 24 hour news for weeks, they still try and drum up some drama over it whenever they get a chance.

The problem is, people dont care. I feel genuinely sad that Snowden blew up his life, and outside of a few privacy communities nothing has changed. Everyone agrees it is wrong, but they dont care, you are a traitor if you dont believe it has to be done.

He should have won a Nobel prize and been given a ticker tape parade for blowing the whistle, but instead he is holed up in Russia, the illegal spying goes on, and the people call for more spying at every turn.

Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 100% agree with everything you're saying. However, let's not forget that 50/80 years were dominated by a two-headed fight for world hegemony under the threat of nuclear war and potential apocalypse. In this fight, while the US was far more evil than anyone cared to admit at the time, and the USSR far less than the US propaganda would have you believe, RELATIVELY speaking one side did offer more freedom, liberty, an…

> However, let's not forget that 50/80 years were dominated by a two-headed fight for world hegemony under the threat of nuclear war and potential apocalypse. Nuclear war? And in that 50/80 years, only one side has ever nuked a city full of civilians. Twice. > This remains true today with China. CPC apologists are all too happy to point out (factually correct) gaps in US integrity and freedom. "CPC apologists". Did w…

>>>It was the "CPC" and the communists who liberated china. You do realize that right?

Depends on what you mean by "liberated". The bulk of the fighting against the Imperial Japanese military was done by the KMT Nationalists, under Chiang Kai-Shek. The KMT lost the civil war afterwards due to still being a shitty unpopular government, and then the CPC went on to "liberate" tens of millions of Chinese from their corporeal bodies during the Cultural Revolution.

>>>I don't remember china claiming to be the world's beacon of good.

The Chinese government is VERY good at information operations.[1] It is usually more subtle than America's ham-fisted chest-thumping. The CCP uses a lot of proxies to sing its praises, like this: [2]. But Xi Jinping is generally assertive in casting China as a model for the world. From [3]: "China will become more assertive on the world stage and believes its governance model is attractive to other countries will likely raise all sorts of alarms in Asian and Western capitals. Xi declared that China "has become a great power in the world" and "it is time for us to take center stage in the world and to make a greater contribution to humankind".

[1] https://www.iri.org/sites/default/files/bridge-ii_fullreport...

[2] http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2021-05/31/c_139980463.htm

[3] https://sinocism.com/p/welcome-to-the-xi-era-sinocism-weekly...

Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

#175
post #24

>Discussions over kidnapping or killing Assange occurred “at the highest levels” of the Trump administration, said a former senior counterintelligence official. “There seemed to be no boundaries.” No idea why Assange feared to be extradited from Sweden to the USA./s

[deleted]

Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honorable, no. Funny, yes. Deserved, certainly. Let's not forget that Kim Dotcom is a miserable piece of shit who rats on his friends and used his position of trust to snoop through people's data and then snitch to governments and criminals for profit. Not enough people know his real history but the guy is a pure scumbag, credit card fraud criminal and con artist masquerading as freedom-loving CEO. He's exactly the k…

I knew some dodgy things about that guy, but you seem to have more information, care to share? I would be most interested to read it.

Ask his former business partners that he burned and other hackers. This isn't hidden knowledge, you just have to have been around the scene long enough. Part of why he ended up in NZ is because he literally burned everyone he could in Europe. He used to run shell boxes and brag about snooping on his customers and ratting them out to government agencies and shutting down carder rivals. He even used to boast "why would anyone trust me with their data?". This is long before Megaupload.

Kim funded Megaupload largely off of his fraudulent gains on carder forums and a legitimate business that he scammed money off of.

Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

#177
post #46
post #24

>Discussions over kidnapping or killing Assange occurred “at the highest levels” of the Trump administration, said a former senior counterintelligence official. “There seemed to be no boundaries.” No idea why Assange feared to be extradited from Sweden to the USA./s

The “to the USA” part is separate from the “from Sweden” part. He’s currently fighting an attempt to go to the USA from the UK, so it’s not like the country of origin is making much difference IMO.

I remember the Assange fangirls back in the day claiming that he couldnt be extradited from the UK to the US which is why he had to fight so hard ... a little inconvenient that the UK loves to extradite people to the US like the good little lapdogs they are.

Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

#179
post #135

The real reason they were so pissed off at Assange seems to be in two parts: 1) The Chelsea Manning State Department cables. The video was all the hype, but just dig through the 'SECRET' cables on Iraq, Saudi Arabia, etc. Zero interest in 'human rights and democracy', lots of interests in oilfields, pipelines, military sales contracts, etc. 2) Those Vault7 CIA leaks are incredibly embarrassing, it's like so closet cr…

Zero interest in 'human rights and democracy', lots of interests in oilfields, pipelines, military sales contracts, etc. You can go to the cable archive and type 'human rights' in the search box and see this isn't remotely true. Whatever one might think of US diplomacy and its goals, the cables are mostly of historical interest and cause for mild embarrassment. They don't really show some diabolically clever empire c…

Sorry, that's an abysmal argument. The fact that human rights are mentioned is not at all proof that US intelligence cares about them, when there is clearly no regard for them in the actions.

Hegemony is a publicly stated goal of the US. What do you think that entails? What do you think is necessary for a nation of 327 million to be the hegemon over 7.5 billion?

Re: Former U.S. officials describe details of the CIA’s proposals to abduct Assange

#180

The real reason they were so pissed off at Assange seems to be in two parts: 1) The Chelsea Manning State Department cables. The video was all the hype, but just dig through the 'SECRET' cables on Iraq, Saudi Arabia, etc. Zero interest in 'human rights and democracy', lots of interests in oilfields, pipelines, military sales contracts, etc. 2) Those Vault7 CIA leaks are incredibly embarrassing, it's like so closet cr…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vault_7

https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/

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