American hypocrisy
...in the Julian Assange and Palestine cases.
According to various news outlets (e.g. The Guardian), the US Department of Justice is considering a plea bargain for Julian Assange. In this plea bargain Assange would have to plead guilty to “mishandling of classified information” in order to receive a reduced sentence.
This is disgraceful because the US administration, in order not to admit the physical and judicial torture inflicted on Julian after his eventual release, is demanding that he plead guilty. This would allow the US to be able to say that “they were right”.
At first glance this might seem a positive thing, but there is nothing positive about it, first of all because the extradition request remains as it is, secondly because they add a new story to prolong Julian's detention and thus his torture.
In any case, Barry Pollack, a lawyer representing Assange in the US, provides some clarity: “It is inappropriate for Mr Assange’s lawyers to comment while his case is before the UK high court other than to say we have been given no indication that the Department of Justice intends to resolve the case and the United States is continuing with as much determination as ever to seek his extradition on all 18 charges, exposing him to 175 years in prison.”
Almost at the same time, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a resolution at the UN Security Council, calling for a cease-fire in Palestine, as reported by Axios. Good. Very good you will say. Instead, here too there is the trick to continue pandering to Israel in order to complete the ethnic cleansing.
If earlier the excuse was Hamas, now it is the hostages, in fact the resolution stands with the release of the hostages, not the other way around.
Blinken puts it this way: “We actually have a resolution that we put forward right now that’s before the UN Security Council that does call for an immediate ceasefire tied to the release of hostages, and we hope very much that countries will support that” [emphasis mine].
To recap: Israel could get the hostages back to appease internal protests and then continue bombing, as tying the ceasefire to their release opens up a huge space for interpretation. Instead, it should be the other way around, first ceasefire and then liberation.
The cherry on top of this “hypocrisy cake” is the decision of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to allow athletes from Russia and Belarus to participate in the Olympics under the IOC flag, i.e. the neutral flag, but without the opportunity to parade at the opening ceremony, whereas no “punishment” has been imposed on the Israeli athletes despite what Netanyahu & co. are doing in Gaza and the West Bank.
As always, double standards and hypocrisy at extreme levels. But there is more. Do you know why? Because Russian and Belarusian Paralympians will also be denied the opportunity to parade at the opening ceremony!
