The original investigative report by Michael Issakov, on Yahoo!news: https://news.yahoo.com/kidnapping-assassination-and-a-london-shoot-out-inside-the-ci-as-secret-war-plans-against-wiki-leaks-090057786.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall. It has been republished worldwide in articles in all the mainstream press: Murdoch, Fairfax, Guardian, ABC Australia. (See links below). We also provide an interview with Michael Issakov on YouTube and an interview with WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief, Kristinn Hrafnsson. These revelations should provoke huge questions in Australian parliament, which has abused procedure to avoid all debate of Assange's fate for more than a decade, limiting any discussion to solitary questions and short monologues by outlier members of parliament, despite an ostensible group of parliamentary supporters, one of whom - Barnaby Joyce - has twice been acting prime minister. How much longer can this callous and cowardly conspiracy of contempt for Assange's human rights persist, especially in the face of Prime Minister Scott Morrison's arcane new submarine association with US President Joe Biden?
Below is an interview by Afshin Rattansi of WikiLeaks Editor-in Chief, Kristinn Hrafnsson, on these revelations.
Afshin Rattansi, RT: The US govt contemplated assassinating Julian Assange with complicity from Britain (WikiLeaks’ Kristinn Hrafnsson) E1055
29 Sep, 2021 08:11 : On this episode of Going Underground, Afshin Rattansi speaks to WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson about the shocking revelations that the Trump administration and CIA considered assassinating or kidnapping Julian Assange, with planned shootouts with Russian agents on Britain’s streets, a car crash kidnapping, and an assault on a passenger jet should Julian Assange decide to leave for Russia. Hrafnsson discusses the previous surveillance on Assange, the implications of these revelations on the US extradition case, the complicity of British authorities with the United States, the arguable slow death of Assange at the hands of British authorities happening now, and much more. Michael Issakof
CIA-Assange assassination plans also reported by The Guardian, The Murdoch Press, Australian ABC and other mainstream
ABC Podcast with Fran Kelly and reporter Matt Bevan, 28 September 2021:https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/the-backstory-with-matt-bevan/13542832. This report, whilst giving good credence to the sources - interviews with 30 CIA agents by investigative journalist, Michael Issakov - still tries to muddy the waters and confuse the listener by referring to multiple contemporary CIA scandals and beat-ups in the Trump era. "A new Yahoo News report claims the CIA plotted to kidnap WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, with some in the Trump administration allegedly considering options for how to assassinate him in 2017. According to the report, then-CIA director Mike Pompeo was motivated to get even with the group following its publication of sensitive agency hacking tools."
The Guardian: (https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/sep/27/senior-cia-officials-trump-discussed-assassinating-julian-assange).
The assassination of Qasem Soleimani, ordered by United States' President Donald Trump was a criminal act. Any country, including the United States, which claims to uphold the rule of law, should spare no effort to bring to justice President Donald Trump, and all the other perpetrators of that crime including Mike Pompeo and Mike Pence.
Qasem Soleimani, unlike the United States' Army had, with the Iraqi Kata'ib Hezbollah paramilitaries, effectively fought against ISIS in Iraq. Those paramilitaries are connected to the country's Popular Mobilization Forces that are part of Iraqi government's armed forces. Qasem Soleimani was adored by most Iraqis.
On Sunday 29 December, Donald Trump ordered attacks on the Kata'ib Hezbollah paramilitaries. As a pretext for his order to attack Iraq's armed forces, Donald Trump claimed that the Kata'ib Hezbollah paramilitaries had launched a rocket attack which had killed a U.S. contractor. Although the Iraqi government began to investigate the attack, Trump was not prepared to await the outcome of the investigation. 27 Paramilitaries were killed in that rocket attack as a result.
Subsequently, enraged Iraqis tried to storm the U.S. embassy and demanded that the U.S. army occupiers leave Iraq.
Then on Friday 3 January, Donald Trump ordered the helicopter strike which killed Qasem Soleimani and 4 Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) officers. The U.S., itself the world's biggest known destabiliser and cause of death and destruction, claimed that this assassination would somehow help stabilise Iraq.
Qasem Soleimani, unlike, the U.S. military, was in Iraq with the permission of its government. The murder of Soleimani would be found by any functional court of law to be a crime and its perpetrator imprisoned.
As well as acting to defend themselves against further U.S. aggression, Iraqi and Iranian patriots should also pursue all legal avenues, through international bodies like the United Nations and the International Criminal Court, to have Donald Trump brought to justice for this crime.
It is also well past the time that the Iraqi government told U.S. military forces to leave. Iraq would be well advised to also remove the U.S. embassy from its soil.
Qasseim Soleimani was inside Iraq with the permission of the Iraqi government. No-one guilty of ordering his assassination should be walking free, let alone running the United States.
Video: Jesse Ventura and Brigida Santos revisit the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Witness David Wallace reflects on the events from that day and shares rare photos from the crime scene. Expert JFK researcher James DiEugenio dissects newly-declassified documents. What does the US Government have to hide about the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy after 45 years? If Lee Harvey Oswald really killed the President, then what is the big deal in releasing unredacted documents? Obviously the government has plenty to hide and this gives us every reason to question the official story. The documents have been released with huge gaps in them due to whiting out and other forms of illegibility. One example is given in this program of a document that had 8 out of 11 pages whited out. One such document concerned Jim Garrison, who famously attempted his own investigation of the crime. What has come to light is the agreement between the FBI, the CIA and the mainstream press to massively discourage any questioning of the official story and to destroy anything published that did. We hear how, at one point, the New York Times had had enough of the incoherence and promised to publish a deep expose. This never happened and we must suspect the government agencies and the government of wanting to obscure their role in this infamous crime. Interviews first published at https://www.rt.com/shows/the-world-according-to-jesse/410251-john-kennedy-jr-murdered/
In an interview on the 4 Corners program, The Battle For Syria, on 4 October 2012, Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr said to Kerry O'Brien, "... perhaps an assassination ... is what is required ... ."
Carr's support for the assassination of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is consistent with allegations that for 40 years he was an agent of the United States Government within the Australian Labor Party. His relationship with the CIA is the subject of Bob Carr: Washington's man in Australia in the Melbourne Age of 8 April 2013 and the article, by Murray Hunter, Is Bob Carr a spy? of 11 April 2013 in the Independent Australian, which cites evidence from the Age article and which we republish below. The US, which Carr uncritically supports, has used assassins, and worse, against the people of Korea, Vietnam, Chile, Argentina, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and now Syria. A number of its own Presidents including JFK and a number of popular Americanpolitical leaders have also fallen to the bullets of assassins.
How Australian governments helped kill 3.3 million Iraqis
Since 1990, Australia has participated in two illegal wars against Iraq.#fn1">1 The Hawke Labor Government led Australia into the first war of 1991 whilst the Liberal/National Coalition Government of John Howard led Australia into the second war of 2003. In addition, Australia participated in the imposition of sanctions which have prevented vitally needed food and medicine from reaching the people of that devastated country. It is now well known that the pretexts used to launch these wars, including the Kuwaiti Incubator babies story and the claim that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) were lies.
Accordingto oneestimate, 3.3 million Iraqis, including 750,000 children consequently died. To escape death through war, disease or starvation, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis fled. According to Wikipedia, 1,300,000 fled to Syria.
Syria, which gave refuge to Iraqis fleeing Australian aggression, now bullied by Australia
Prior to that on 4 October 2012, in an interview on the 4 Corners program, The Battle For Syria, Bob Carr said to Kerry O'Brien, "... perhaps an assassination ... is what is required ... ."
Carr's support for the assassination of the Syrian President seems consistent with his alleged 40 year record of being an agent of the United States Government within the Australian Labor Party . The US, which Carr uncritically supports, has used assassins against the people of Korea, Vietnam, Chile, Argentina, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and now Syria. One of its own Presidents and a number of popular Americanpolitical leaders have also fallen to the bullets of assassins.
The Age exposes the Australian foreign minister as an "agent" under US influence; Murray Hunter asks -- is U.S. influence in Australian politics destroying policy objectivity?
Foreign Minister Bob Carr (image courtesy ABC).
JUST AROUND a week ago in Beijing, Australia's Foreign Minister Bob Carr entered the US-Korea conflict by trying to persuade the Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi to adopt sanctions against North Korea.
On Monday (8 April), an investigative journalist from The Age, after going through 11,000 cables from the U.S. embassy in Canberra and consulates in Sydney and Melbourne, leaked by US Army Private Bradley Manning and published by WikiLeaks, found that the current Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr had been briefing the US embassy since the 1970s on both the internal decision making of the Australian Government during the Whitlam Labor Government (1972-75) and internal workings of the Australian Labor Party (ALP).
Bob Carr has been Australia's foreign minister for 12 months, replacing Kevin Rudd, who resigned after challenging Julia Gillard for the prime ministership. Carr has been involved in the Australian Labor Party for more than 40 years and was New South Wales premier from 1995-2005.
Carr began his relationship with US embassy officials in the mid 1970s, when he was president of Young Labor and education officer of the NSW Labor Council. According to The Age investigative report Philip Dorling he would regularly brief the US Consul General over labour issues and the prospects of the Labor Government in Canberra. From the information gathered from Carr and also NSW Labor President John Ducker, intelligence reports on Australian politics and labour issues would be sent onto Washington. Leaked US cables to WikiLeaks also indicated that the former Labor Senator Mark Arbib was also a "protected" US embassy source passing on information and commentary on Australian politics.
Bob Carr is very well known for his staunch support for the Australian-US alliance as an non-negotiable pillar of Australian foreign policy and often dismisses critics as being in "emotional silly expression lacking in any substance and characteristic of the silly leftwing fringe of the ALP".
With such rigid advice to the prime minister and cabinet at a time where many academics and commentators like Professor Hugh White of the Australian National University are calling for a re-appraisal of this alliance and much more strategic engagement with China, it is very difficult to see how the Australian Government's pending 2013 Defense White Paper will signal any major shifts in policy on this matter.
At the very least, hanging on to the Australian-US alliance without any objective appraisal and redefinition may not serve the country's strategy interests in the Asia-Pacific Region well if the U.S. continues a competitive stance against China.
These revelations add to past suspicions by many in the labour movement about members of the party and government (when Labor was in power) who have been involved in close relationships with U.S. officials.
Labor suspicion of U.S. intelligence operating in Australia mainly stems from the election of the reformist and nationalistic Whitlam Labor Government in 1972, after 23 years in opposition. Whitlam immediately pulled Australia out of the Vietnam conflict, recognized the Peoples' Republic of China, campaigned for a nuclear free Indian Ocean, spoke up for Palestinian rights in the United Nations, and opposed French nuclear testing in the Pacific.
In 1973, the then Attorney General of Australia Lionel Murphy led a raid on the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO), the equivalent to the U.S. CIA, over concern with the organisation's involvement with the training of fascist Croatian groups, and the launching of terrorist operations from Australian soil. According to the Hope Commission back in 1977, ASIO was handing over to the CIA information on Australian opposition politicians and kept files on all ALP members.
The Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) was assisting the CIA in undertaking clandestine operations in Cambodia and Chile, even though Australia was officially neutral in Cambodia and supported the Government of Salvador Allende in Chile, without the knowledge of the Australian Government.
Many felt that when the Whitlam Government took measures to control the operations of the US Naval Communications Station on the North-West Cape of Western Australia, the Defence Signals Directorate in Melbourne, the Joint Defense research facility at Pine Gap and Nurrunger in South Australia, that the U.S. became vitally concerned.
After Whitlam discovered that ASIO and ASIS had secretly assisted the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975, he dismissed the heads of both organizations. Whitlam then hinted that he may not renew the Pine Gap agreement with the U.S. due for signing on 9th December 1975, which would have severely dented U.S. intelligence gathering ability. Labor mythology believes that the U.S. ambassador to Australia at the time, Marshall Green, had a hand in the dismissal of the Whitlam Government in November 1975 by the then Governor General Sir John Kerr. Of course, Kerr's time working for a closely aligned Australian intelligence organization to the U.S. OSS, the forerunner of the CIA, has always added spice to such conspiracy theories.
After Whitlam discovered that ASIO and ASIS had secretly assisted the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975, he dismissed the heads of both organizations. Whitlam then hinted that he may not renew the Pine Gap agreement with the U.S. due for signing on 9th December 1975, which would have severely dented U.S. intelligence gathering ability. Labor mythology believes that the U.S. ambassador to Australia at the time, Marshall Green, had a hand in the dismissal of the Whitlam Government in November 1975 by the then Governor General Sir John Kerr. Of course, Kerr's time working for a closely aligned Australian intelligence organization to the U.S. OSS, the forerunner of the CIA, has always added spice to such conspiracy theories.
During the first week after the dismissal of the Labor Government, the army was on stand-by at their barracks in case there were mass demonstrations. However, it was the Australian Council of Trade Unions then president Bob Hawke who summoned the labour movement to be calm. US diplomatic cables also implicate the former prime minister, saying he regularly conferred with the U.S. Consulate in Melbourne during his ACTU years. It was generally believed that the Labor Attaché at the U.S. embassy in Canberra was in reality the CIA station chief (McKnight, D., "Labor and the Quiet Americans", The Age, February 20, 2003, p15). The future Hawke Government, elected in 1984, went on to implement many pro-U.S. initiatives, and prevented public disclosure of documents relating to the Nugan Hand Bank during his term as Prime Minister, which were believed to implicate the CIA with drug trafficking and organized crime.
This is the first time that leaked U.S. documents have confirmed what many believe to be the truth surrounding U.S. infiltration within the Australian Labor Party. The issue is likely to be very quickly dismissed in Australia by the argument that the U.S. is an ally. However, within these documents there is some proof and support that the U.S. has meddled in the affairs of the Australian union movement and political parties for many years. What is even more astounding is that some Labor politicians showed disloyalty to their party to a foreign power during the Whitlam years.
Bob Carr has been forthright in exposing past politicians as members of the Communist Party of Australia, so should take the accusations against him seriously, either stepping aside for the duration of an inquiry or resigning outright. David Combe's relationship with a Soviet diplomat Valery Ivanov back in 1984 led to swift action on the part of the Hawke Government at the time. In the interests of transparency and sovereignty, the Australian Federal Police and ASIO should conduct an inquiry.
In 1999 a civil trial jury found that Loyd Jowers participated in a conspiracy with the US state to kill Martin Luther King. Even though Martin Luther King is world renowned, the results of this trial are still not widely known and probably few Australians have any idea of the truth. The man officially convicted of the assassination, James Earl Ray, died in jail. The civil trial exonerated him. Successive governments had refused to reopen his case. Part of this remarkable story is about the efforts of the King family and friends to bring about a thorough investigation and the absolute recalcitrance of the US government.
Martin Luther King was shot and killed by a sniper on 4 April 1968, while standing on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.
James Earl Ray
James Earl Ray was charged with King's murder and confessed on 10 March 1969, but then recanted three days later. He was sentenced to 99 years prison. Ray later claimed to have been talked into the guilty plea by his lawyer, in order to avoid the possibility of the electric chair. Members of the King family and friends, notably Dr William Pepper, made unsuccessful efforts to obtain a retrial for Ray. Pepper actually represented Ray in a mock trial on television.
Ray died in prison on 23 April 1998, at seventy years of age. He had his ashes buried in Ireland because he did not wish to be buried in the United States because of the injustice he had suffered.
In response to gathering murmurs of dissent, Gerard Posner wrote Case Closed in 1998, where he claimed to conclusively lay controversy to rest, arguing that James Earl Ray did indeed murder Martin Luther King
Trial finds Loyd Jowers participated in US State conspiracy to assassinate King
In 1999, however, a civil trial jury found that Loyd Jowers, owner of the premises in which Martin Luther King was slain, was guilty of participating in a conspiracy with the US state to murder King. The Complete Transcript may be accessed here (erroneous link removed 20 Oct 11 - admin). The jury's finding was conclusive and exonerated James Earl Ray:
Trial findings
"On the evening of April 4 1968, Martin Luther King was in Memphis supporting a worker's strike. By the end of the day, top-level army snipers were in position to knock him out if ordered. Two military officers were in place on the roof of a fire station near the Lorraine Motel, to photograph the events. Two black firemen had been ordered not to report to duty that day and a black Memphis Police Department detective on surveillance duty in the fire station was physically removed from his post and taken home. Dr. King's room at the motel was changed from a secluded ground-floor room to number 306 on the balcony. Loyd Jowers, owner of Jim's Grill which backed to the motel from the other side of the street, had already received $100,000 in cash for his agreement to participate in the assassination. He was to go out into the brush area behind the grill with the shooter and take possession of the gun immediately after the fatal shot was fired. When the dust settled, King had been hit, and a clean-up procedure was immediately set in motion. James Earl Ray was effectively framed, the snipers dispersed, any witnesses who could not be controlled were killed, and the crime scene was destroyed." (cited at http://911blogger.com/node/22402#comment-225954)
The King family has since concluded that Ray did not have anything to do with the murder of Martin Luther King. You can read a transcript of their press conference to that effect, summing up the outcome of the trial.
Writer, Jim Douglas, one of few members of the public who actually attended the trial was amazed at how little coverage it received. He commented that
Public and press hypnotised by official story ignore trial
This historic trial was so ignored by the media that, apart from the courtroom participants, I was the only person who attended it from beginning to end. What I experienced in that courtroom ranged from inspiration at the courage of the Kings, their lawyer-investigator William F. Pepper, and the witnesses, to amazement at the government's carefully interwoven plot to kill Dr. King. The seriousness with which US intelligence agencies planned the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. speaks eloquently of the threat Kingian nonviolence represented to the powers that be in the spring of 1968.
An interesting article about both Killing the Dream and Case Closed is "He's Baaack! - The Return of Gerald Posner" by Jim DiEugenio at http://www.ctka.net/pr798-posner.html
It may also be of interest readers of http://candobetter.org site to know that our article about King's attitude to family planning is among our most visited ever. King was certainly a popular man with a transforming vision which has retained enormous power to inspire.
This little article has been written using notes from candobetter editor and writer, James Sinnamon, plus the articles linked to above, but I am also grateful to wikipedia for two articles and photos on their sites about Loyd Jowers and James Earl Ray.
The original investigative report by Michael Issakov, on Yahoo!news: https://news.yahoo.com/kidnapping-assassination-and-a-london-shoot-out-inside-the-ci-as-secret-war-plans-against-wiki-leaks-090057786.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall. It has been republished worldwide in articles in all the mainstream press: Murdoch, Fairfax, Guardian, ABC Australia. (See links below). We also provide an interview with Michael Issakov on YouTube and an interview with WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief, Kristinn Hrafnsson. These revelations should provoke huge questions in Australian parliament, which has abused procedure to avoid all debate of Assange's fate for more than a decade, limiting any discussion to solitary questions and short monologues by outlier members of parliament, despite an ostensible group of parliamentary supporters, one of whom - Barnaby Joyce - has twice been acting prime minister. How much longer can this callous and cowardly conspiracy of contempt for Assange's human rights persist, especially in the face of Prime Minister Scott Morrison's arcane new submarine association with US President Joe Biden?
ABC Podcast with Fran Kelly and reporter Matt Bevan, 28 September 2021:https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/the-backstory-with-matt-bevan/13542832. This report, whilst giving good credence to the sources - interviews with 30 CIA agents by investigative journalist, Michael Issakov - still tries to muddy the waters and confuse the listener by referring to multiple contemporary CIA scandals and beat-ups in the Trump era. "A new Yahoo News report claims the CIA plotted to kidnap WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, with some in the Trump administration allegedly considering options for how to assassinate him in 2017. According to the report, then-CIA director Mike Pompeo was motivated to get even with the group following its publication of sensitive agency hacking tools."
The assassination of Qasem Soleimani, ordered by United States' President Donald Trump was a criminal act. Any country, including the United States, which claims to uphold the rule of law, should spare no effort to bring to justice President Donald Trump, and all the other perpetrators of that crime including Mike Pompeo and Mike Pence.
Video: 
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