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Julian Assange | Oxford Union
"Notes:
Assange participated via video link from the Ecuadorean embassy in London.
Thursday, January 31, 2013 - 1:45am
transcriber"
FULL TRANSCRIPT
LINK www.correntewire.com
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INTERVIEW - 5 YEARS ON FROM RELEASE
OF 'COLLATERAL MURDER' VIDEO
LINK
http://espresso.repubblica.it/internazionale/2015/04/02/news/julian-assange-i-still-enjoy-crushing-bastards-1.206855?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
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Someone had posted the Oxford Union video on twitter, so I thought I'd take a look.
Decided to transcribe it for something educational to do.
Got into 4 minutes of transcription before it dawned on me to check online to see if anyone had transcribed it.
Yes, they have. Phew!
It would have taken me forever switching audio on and off while flipping screens to type.
Link to the transcript above or here.
WikiLeaks 'Collateral Murder' information link at top of page and 5 years on interview link above (or here).
After I've finished editing some screen grabs of a hilarious social media block, I'll be back to check this out more thoroughly.
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IRAN
Had no idea there were so many military bases around Iran (a whopping 45 on every side!).
According to Assange (Oxford Union talk video above), WikiLeaks cables show that Britain engaged in a conspiracy to killing off the Sky satellite feed from Press TV to Britain (ie Iran state broadcasting equivalent to the BBC), and this is described as a death penalty for a national broadcaster, as this means the Iran government cannot get across its views.
So, I gather, this is a means of isolating Iran and of controlling public information (and therefore opinion), while beating the drums of war on Iran.
Given Iran is completely surrounded by hostile territories, the 45 military bases and given the drums of war beating in the West, together with the West isolating Iran, Iran is, understandably, in a highly fearful state — fearful of war.
According to Assange, Iran's fears mean that the human rights abuses the West is concerning itself about, have very little chance of resolution "because the leadership of that country is so terrified about being invaded."
Also SEE: Britain human rights abuses WWI & WWII — Britain imprisoned Bertrand Russell WWI & similar abuses WWII.
Democracies - always lied into war
Assange conveys that: the internet has become the most important device for revealing the truth (since the beginning of the printing press), and has become the number one antidote to TV. Says: democracies are always lied into war. The Iraq war was the result of lies and the increased involvement of the US in Vietnam came as a result of another lie (see Tonkin Gulf incident).
According to Assange, it is not just lies by intelligence agencies: it is also lies by the big media machine, comprised of various [press/media] institutions that get too comfortable and too close to the table of power that they are meant to be reporting on and policing and getting information into the historic record.
Note: intelligence isn't the problem. Corruption of intelligence, which comes about through secrecy is the problem:
The problem is the corruption of those agencies, and that corruption
comes about because of secrecy. When Tom spoke about, in somewhat
glowing terms, the improved process that he put down, and I believe him
that that is a significant improvement from what was there before, it
all rests upon one thing. It rests upon the abilities of people in those
agencies to get out information to the public when those processes are
not followed. [1]
We might have depoliticized analysts working in
intelligence agencies who are to all intents and purposes mere robots,
perfect machines with perfect accuracy. They are tasked, they engage in
the task, they analyze, they pass up information higher up the food
chain. [1]
And what if, in Tom’s case, for example, his National
Intelligence Estimate, there was not a threat that it would be released,
because our sources say that in fact the White House knew that if it
did not release a version immediately, another version would be
released, and the White House would have to get – would then come in
second, and its opponents would have their spin on it, so the White
House wanted to get their spin on it first. [1]
It’s only through this
pressure of producing analytical product to the public that these sorts
of agencies are kept honest and don’t become simply robots that are, in
effect, perhaps this is drawing the bow too far, but some kind of
Hitler’s willing executioners, mere people who act as robots who are
told to carry out a task and do it. That is not enough. It is not enough
to agree to carry out a task for superiors. That is the Nuremberg
defense. We must all look to ourselves and understand whether what we
are doing is right and just not just according to the views of our
superiors but according to the long view of history, according to human
rights and to our feelings of compassion, if we have any. [1]
Tom Fingar look-up:
Thomas (Tom) Fingar is a professor at Stanford University. [2]
In 1986 Fingar left Stanford to join the State Department. In 2005, he moved to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence as the Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analysis and concurrently served as the Chairman of the National Intelligence Council until December 2008. [2]
In January 2009, he rejoined Stanford University as ... Lecturer in ... Institute for International Studies. [2]
In December 2007, Fingar was one of the authors of a National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear programs. [2]
The NIE asserted with "high confidence" that Tehran had "halted its nuclear weapons program" in the fall of 2003. [2]
This contradicted an earlier 2005 NIE report that ballistic delivery systems and uranium enrichment was continuing. [2]
The 2007 NIE was a political sensation, seized on by Democrats and Iraq war critics as another case in which the Bush Administration had ... politicized intelligence. [2]
The above Fingar information came from a Wikipedia entry.
Best to check further sources rather than to merely rely on Wikipedia, as Wikipedia entries are prepared by those with professional, political and other biases and affiliations.
Take the Wikipedia statement:
"The 2007 NIE was a political sensation, seized on by Democrats and Iraq war critics as another case in which the Bush Administration had supposedly politicized intelligence."
What is the word 'supposedly' doing in there?
As an information repository Wikipedia sucks: it is enough to say that critics had accused the Bush administration of politicising intelligence.
Wikipedia twists this simple fact around — with the gratuitous and biased 'supposedly' — to sneakily imply that such criticism is not warranted (showing a bias in favour of the Bush administration).
Note to self: watch for cultural bias {and find out what exactly this is ... lol}.
Asssange indicates Iraq intelligence reports 2003 demonstrate that it is not enough to produce accurate intelligence reports (eg. sectarian crisis in Iraq accurate intelligence reporting prediction was subsequently completely denied by US leadership). So accurate intelligence reporting is not enough if leadership won't let reporting come out. Analysts therefore must be responsible to the public and to the historical record, and not to political leadership.
Mass propaganda attack against WikiLeaks as an organisation, the character of WikiLeaks staff and the activities of WikiLeaks, as well as an attack on Iran — fanning the flames to start a war with Iran: Film, The Fifth Estate (2013).
Film disregards facts: Fingar National Intelligence Estimate found that Iran did not have a nuclear program & all 16 US intelligence agencies feeding into that report said that was the case, with high confidence, and it has been confirmed every year since that report.
Assange refers to the big budget film lies upon lies and war drum propaganda.
Assange points out that this is not merely a war of intelligence agencies but a war of corrupt media and corrupt culture.
We need to "understand that where there's great powers at work" (not shadow conspiracies) but "enormous cultural powers, enormous industrial powers, the vast network of corporations, that interact with government agencies around the world selling products":
The National Security Agency, for example, now has approximately 70% of
its expenditure pass through Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin,
etcetera. This produces a lobby that pushes in particular directions. [1]
How is it that such a lie got into a script about WikiLeaks?
How is it that such a lie got into a script about WikiLeaks? How is
it that in the light of that National Intelligence Estimate that anyone
could think that it was tolerable, acceptable, to foist that lie upon
the public, that it would make it all the way through the Hollywood
system, that distributors would pick it up? Because they perceive that
that is where the power lies in the United States. They perceive that
it’s perfectly okay to slander an entire nation, that it’s perfectly
okay to beat the drums of war like that, because people in that system
want the war. They want it.
We have to understand that everything that we see, read and hear is
produced for a purpose. It’s produced as a result of incentives. And
other material is not produced. There are disincentives to not produce
it. We walk almost sleepwalking, almost blind, every time we open a
newspaper and read an article. [1]
There is a war on for control of the Internet
Now, working against that trend and against that current of corrupt
powerful organizations producing a distorted perspective of the world
has been the Internet. For the first time in history, that has allowed
one person with some truth to speak to every single person who wants to
hear that truth. It is the great antidote. There is a war on for control
of the Internet. That war takes place on the one hand by producing
incredible propaganda and hyping up threats about how the Internet is
dangerous. On the other hand, it involves introducing mass surveillance
systems to surveil all of the Internet. You know, different countries
see the effects being brought by the Internet and the political
liberations being brought by the Internet and powerful groups in those
countries feel fearful and they feel destabilized, and as a result they
want to find some way to control it and to know it. [1]
So ...
War on Control of Internet
a) producing propaganda & hyping up threats on how Internet is dangerous.
b) mass surveillance systems to surveil all of the Internet.
c) powerful groups are fearful & feel destabilized by Internet as a force for information/political liberation (therefore seek to control Internet).
Wow, this was a really good video.
Had to keep rewinding, listening and referring to the transcript because I'm not up on this information and a bit slow to take it in.
Really worth watching and reading (thanks to whoever did that transcript; really helpful).
On first impressions (for someone, like me, who doesn't know a lot about what's going on), it seems idealistic to expect intelligence personnel to answer to the public or to history. But when you take the time to absorb what is being said in relation to what has actually happened in the recent past and in the more distant past (eg the costs of wars that could have been averted), that idea *does* make sense.
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EU-NATO IMPERIALISM ❌ 
