Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: Welcome back to Going Underground, broadcasting all around the world from the uae. Tomorrow marks four decades since the Reykjavik summit when Reagan and USSR destroyer Gorbachev discussed eliminating all nuclear weapons. Gorbachev offered a historic deal to totally eradicate strategic nuclear arsenals by the year 2000. But Reagan and military industrial, industrial complex imperialists like Richard Pearl, the Prince of Darkness who later engineered the 2003 WMD Iraq War lies, refused to abandon a fantasy policy called Star Wars. Talks collapsed at the last minute. Just weeks later, Reagan was in his Iran Contra scandal, illegally trading arms to Iran to funnel profits to right wing death squads in Nicaragua. Desperate to save his reputation, Reagan announced acceptance of Gorbachev's INF treaty terms in 2019. Trump ripped it all up. It was his national security security adviser, John Bolton, who I'll be interviewing tomorrow on New Order, who flew to Port Moscow to personally inform Vladimir Putin that Washington was walking away. Today, the threat of thermonuclear catastrophe is higher than at any point in The Cold War. 85 seconds to midnight. Washington remains trapped and desperate after defeat by Iran while Western European vassals continue reckless warmongering against the world's largest nuclear power with NATO nation so called journalists promoting genocide and the path to nuclear war. But real journalists are out there even as press freedom faces its darkest hours. Last week marked 20 years of WikiLeaks, the platform that exposed US UK EU war crimes. Today we celebrate the freedom of Julian Assange and his return to public life after years of British incarceration and torture. Joining me again from Reykjavik in Iceland is the editor in chief of WikiLeaks, Christian Raffinson. Christian, thanks so much for coming on Going Underground. You're talking to us from Reykjavik, where tomorrow marks that anniversary. Of course there is another 20 year anniversary, arguably slightly less important, but probably on the same level. How is Julian Assange? When's the last time you spoke to him? He returned to X after eight years. His wife's pregnant with a third child due this month.
[00:02:23] Speaker A: I spoke to him yesterday actually and we're regular contact and I visited him in Australia last winter in the Australian summer. He is doing well considering. I mean it's been a little over two years since he regained his freedom finally and he's been using the time in recovery and the family life, which is natural. And just recently he reemerged on social media and announced that he was returning. So I am certain we're going to hear more from him now into the future and that is much needed. His voice is needed in the Current atmosphere. There's a lot of challenges in today's world.
[00:03:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, while he was tortured by the British, I should say you were psychologically impacted. Sixteen years for you at WikiLeaks, the anniversary. Also, Marx, before we get into the most significant leaks, what about the legacy for whistleblowers and journalists? It's been a terrible three years, obviously for journalists. More than 250 journalists and media workers killed in Gaza. That's more than the combined number killed in World War I, World War II. All the conflicts of the 20th century and this one so far combined more censorship without a free press, of course, there is no such thing as democracy.
What would you say before we get to the leaks, how significant it has been for whistleblowers and journalists?
[00:03:52] Speaker A: Well, I mean the state of journalism today is bleak and as you mentioned, the worst spot of course is Gaza where very brave people have been sacrificing their lives literally and have been targeted and killed and assassinated for trying to get a truth out on the genocide.
But journalists are facing challenges all over the place. They've been stopped at borders on furious terrorism charges or suspicions. And the British border, I know you're
[00:04:31] Speaker B: talking about the British border.
Yeah, well I know all about that British border. But Julian chose to speak about Gaza after he regained his freedom. Of all the places in the world where things are happening, he chose Gaza.
[00:04:50] Speaker A: He did.
That is where our focus should be.
We are facing a nation there
[00:05:00] Speaker B: which
[00:05:00] Speaker A: is committing a most horrendous crime before our eyes and is dictating the empire into wars.
In my mind the most dangerous country in the world today.
So we should maintain our focus on that front. And journalism is under attack.
If we continue on that front, that is undisputable and quality journalists, those who actually are true to the spirit of true journalism, are a marginalized, pushed to the fringe or silenced. That is still going on and that needs to be addressed. And I mean if we want to go to WikiLeaks legacy, it's 20 years.
I'm very proud of being a part of that. For the last 16 years in one form or another, it has been exceptionally important utter in our contemporary history, which I think we will appreciate more as time goes by. Maybe it will be the role of historians, but certainly it's been a very, very important overall input in our understanding of the world. And you could argue that it's now quarter of a century into the century and if you look back into how things have progressed after nine, it was just slippery slope downhill for journalism. And of Course, we had power abuse growing day by day. You had torture chambers in black sites in Europe, you had Continental Bay, you had illegal wars. And you had very little pushback in journalism because secrecy just increased year on year.
That all changed in 2010. I mean, that was without any doubt the biggest demonstration of objection to the power abuse that you had. And that needs to be acknowledged, that we suddenly saw into the depth of the darkness of what was going on and we couldn't avoid looking at it up until then. For the first decade of the century, that was just not the case. And I can attest to that. As a journalist working in the mainstream, I was getting very desperate about the situation.
So it was a fresh input that WikiLeaks brought about on so many fronts.
And there is so much to remember of all these years since afsa.
[00:07:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I heard that. Of course, if there's any journalists out there who's not using WikiLeaks today, then they're not really journalists, arguably, if they're talking about the contemporary world. Because the relevance continues.
[00:08:11] Speaker A: Of course.
[00:08:11] Speaker B: We've had the mass killing in Minab in Iran, the triple tack Tomahawk strike. Not sure. Of course, the Americans say they're doing an investigation into it. I don't know whether it reminded you. I mean, we. We don't have a Collateral Murder video of the tomahawk strike on the elementary school for girls in southern Iran. Tell me about Collateral Murder and how that put WikiLeaks on the map.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: Well, I was instrumental in working on the Collateral Murder video that was released on April 5, 2010.
It was an explosive video, evidence of war crime.
That was rare sight and.
It was something that will always be an iconic part of how we view the Iraq war.
It was the Nepal Mukuru photo of the Iraq war, if you wish. That is the way we will see the Iraq war. It will be through that video and alongside photographs from Abu Ghraib. That is the visual portrayal of the nature of the Iraq war. When it came out, it was a shock. It went viral, went all over the place. It was watched by millions upon millions. And of course it was as you remember, showing the assassination of civilians, innocent civilians, attack upon children, and the killing of two Reuters journalists who were working on the ground there.
A photojournalist named Namir Nurilddin and his assistant said sma. Yes, I did travel to Iraq prior to the release of the video to do an on the ground investigation and verification. Talked to two dozen people who were either direct or indirect witnesses to the event.
And met the two children who survived the incident, said Doaa, whose father, Matasser Thomal was basically assassinated. His only crime was to drive upon the scene and wanted to save the wounded. Reuter staffer Sayyid SMA and these are
[00:10:39] Speaker B: Apache Apache helicopters, obviously from the US Military.
[00:10:46] Speaker A: Two Apache helicopters safe high up in the air, barely visible from the ground, with powerful zoom lenses, with stabilizers and 30 millimeter cannons that spew bullets that explode upon impact as little hand grenades designed to penetrate armored vehicles and tanks, but used against civilians on the ground, basically exploding upon impact. So you can imagine the carnage. It was horrific imagery. But what was chilling as well, and what many picked upon was the fact that how the Apache crews were discussing in between themselves over the intercom and in the communication with ground control, how the bloodlust that was seeping through and the calculated approach to try to remain within the so called rules of engagement, but so much willing and trigger happy to finish the job.
I watched this hundreds of times before it was released, studying it before, and it's still in my mind. Every word uttered in that interaction is with me. And especially when they talk about their achievement. And one of them says, look at all these dead bodies. And another one replies, nice.
The word nice doesn't have the same connotation in my head after that.
And the way they were looking outside Sma heavily wounded on a curb with a crosser on his back and seeing that he was unarmed and being very unhappy and saying, well, all you gotta do is pick up a weapon. Because then they knew they had reason enough to open fire and finish him off. But they waited a little longer and was on just until the minimum approached on the scene and Matasse Tomal was a good Samaritan trying to save him. And then they created a pretext saying they were possibly picking up weapons, that this was a bongo truck, made it sound like this was insurgents and got the go ahead to open fire and obliterate the vehicle, killing all the idols inside. And the only reason why the two children's reprieve to Sayyidan DOA was the fact that their father just threw his body to shield them and taking the bullets and the shrapnel into his own body.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: Christian Ravenson, I'll stop you there. More from the WikiLeaks Editor in Chief after this break.
Welcome back to Going Underground. I'm still here with the editor in Chief of WikiLeaks, Kristin Harfenson. Kristin, you were telling us in part one about the collateral Murder video. Interestingly, not in the indictment actually of Julian Assange, but in the indictment of Chelsea Manning, who was tortured by the United States authorities, whereas Julian was tortured by the British. I don't know whether it also demonstrated, I mean, Reuters had filed a freedom of Information request. Reuters, an agency that arguably looks more and more ridiculous.
During the Gaza genocide, the Skripal incident in Britain, it also showed how journalists in NATO countries arguably collaborate. And we've seen that in recent years over Gaza to two sides, a story to make out.
To make out that. I don't know.
[00:14:44] Speaker A: The.
[00:14:45] Speaker B: The situation in Gaza has two sides to the story.
The Afghan War Diary, 2010. Iraq War Logs, 2010. Half a million classified battlefield reports revealed more lies.
66,000 previously unreported civilians killed. I think if one looked at the reporting from Reuters and ip, this is all in Iraq. Of course, the Iraq War of 2003 would have shown that everything that they were printing or broadcasting was to promote the war.
[00:15:17] Speaker A: Yeah, the critical reporting on the war both in Afghanistan and Iraq was dismal. And there was very few were actually reporting the truth out of those countries. And especially, I mean, imagine the fact that when. First part of that, the Afghan war diary, the logs from Afghanistan, when it came out, the narrative, the predominant narrative in 2010, and this is very close to me because I had traveled into Afghanistan twice in 2004 and 2007 and didn't stay there long and I didn't have a capacity to dig into things there. But the over predominant narrative about Afghanistan. Well, this was almost over.
It was.
I mean, I even interviewed the head of the NATO, American general, the head of the NATO force in Afghanistan in Kabul, who told me in 2007, oh, it's almost over. And they always used the word. Well, there are small pockets of resistance.
But when you got then the war logs from Afghanistan and you looked through it, you saw the escalation of the conflict and it was getting from bad to worse, worse year on year.
[00:16:38] Speaker B: And they were certainly over basically in November of that same year, they were
[00:16:42] Speaker A: lying through the teeth.
[00:16:43] Speaker B: And in that same year, November of That same year, U.S. diplomatic cables, quarter of a million including one of them which is pertinent to the possibly the annihilation of Europe in a nuclear conflict today, arguably the US Ambassador to Moscow, Bill Burns, showing he well knew what would happen in Ukraine.
The warnings of the red lines of NATO expansion.
Tell me about that one.
[00:17:10] Speaker A: Well, it was one of the many revelations in there. Of course, there was a story that led.
There's a backstory to the events that are often forgotten. That applies to Ukraine, that applies to Gaza.
The Zionists and the Israelis will try to convince you that it all started on October 7, three years ago.
A date recently passed. But that is not the case.
[00:17:46] Speaker B: Yeah, the war in Ukraine started in February 22, apparently not 2014.
[00:17:54] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, there's a backstory to everything, all the events. I'm not going to start justifying the invasion. I'm against war in all forms and not quantum killings on any front.
But it amplifies the fact that we rarely get a glimpse of what really is going on behind the scene and what is in the story. And how could you, for years and years, hide the real truth about these two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Afghanistan.
Can you imagine this? And in 2010, actually, if you looked at Afghanistan and the war diaries from there, it was clear to everybody who was looking objectively at the data there that this was an unwinnable war.
But then, of course, you had it continuing for another 10 years unnecessarily. Everybody should have known in 2010, 2011, this was over. This was unwinnable.
[00:18:52] Speaker B: And we did.
Some of us did, even without the cables. Israel, of course, in one of the cables saying they're happy about Hamas taking over Gaza, the attempts to destroy Syria, the bugging of the United nations officials in those logs. And of course, Syria was important, required arguably for the genocide in Gaza later.
All of those are in those diplomatic cables before we get to Snowden.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean, the diplomatic cables actually revealed something that actually led to the withdrawal of the US troops out of Iraq. So maybe we could say WikiLeaks did end that war, or at least the presence of U.S. troops in the country.
That was the information being discussed in the cables about a cover up of a hideous war crime where actually people were shackled and down to very young children and assassinated. And then they threw bombs on the house to try to cover up. This was being discussed. And this led to so much protest in Iraq that the Al Maliki government said it is impossible for us to continue guaranteeing immunity for US soldiers in the country. And that led to Obama pulling out the remaining soldiers in Iraq.
There are so many stories in there. I mean, the Cablegate release was just phenomenal.
250,000 people on the cables from all over the world exposing the underbelly of the empire.
[00:20:27] Speaker B: We use them all the time. We use them all the time.
[00:20:29] Speaker A: Snowden then still being used. Yep.
[00:20:32] Speaker B: Edward Snowden explaining to the world how all our phones are bugging us, but particularly Chirag Sarkozy, Hollande, Merkel, Banky Moon, who's been on this show, the former Secretary General of the United Nations. What does it tell us about the EU's independence from the United States and their ability to forge any kind of policies when all of them and their most intimate moments are being surveilled by American intelligence agencies?
[00:21:01] Speaker A: Well, the reaction to that, the revelations were remarkable actually because nobody did protest and that says a lot.
Well, it was very muted protests. Of course, the independence there is and was quite hinge upon the economic and military situation there. We still have what, up to 8,90,000 U.S. troops in Europe stationed there.
So it is a skewed situation.
And Europe has been trying to lately to create some kind of independent strategy and position, but not sure they will handle that economically. And that will take quite a lot of effort if they're doing so.
[00:22:00] Speaker B: But yes, especially if any of them, especially if they're being blackmailed on information that has been got through different programs that Snowden revealed to the world.
March 2017 the false flag manual for some vault 7 I should say we always credit WikiLeaks when we talk about it on going Underground. We use use them a lot on this show. The revelations that you're responsible for the largest ever CIA document leak in history.
Tell me about Umbridge, which can be used to hack computers and put different languages, Russian and Chinese in the code. How useful that might be for NATO nation powers.
[00:22:44] Speaker A: Well, I mean, obviously useful. And there was so much in the world seven leagues that exposed the cyber arsenal of CIA and the embarrassment that it caused CIA was tremendous. It was huge and the reaction was strong.
You do recall that Mike Pompeo was director of the CIA at the time and the first thing he did when he went made his public speech, I think it was in April 2017, was to outline the dangers facing the US and mentioned on the top of the list WikiLeaks and designated a foreign hostile intelligence service. And of course at that point we knew that it was gloves off towards Julian Assange and the rest of us. And lo and behold, we later learned that they were plotting assassination against Julian who was at that point in the Equatorial Embassy.
[00:23:46] Speaker B: They tried to kill him in Britain. I'm just speeding us along because as you say, we can only get a cursory view of your work.
Of course, Trump famously said we love WikiLeaks because the Podesta Clinton DNC emails showed how dark and anti democratic was Hillary Clinton and the entire Democratic National Committee was that where. And then the Russia hoax then came out of that,
[00:24:18] Speaker A: well, that love affair. And that love didn't last very long.
[00:24:23] Speaker B: You haven't had any invitations recently to the Trump mar a Lago.
[00:24:28] Speaker A: It didn't take long for Trump actually to when Pompeo suggested that Julian should be targeted and he chimed according to good resources, well can we take out the SOP or something of that nature. So that was a short lived law affair. But the expose of the inside of the Democratic Party was extraordinary. It was good journalism. It was necessary to expose what was going on behind the closed doors and the smoke filled rooms. How they were plotting and manipulating the scales against Bernie Sanders, who would have according to all polls probably done much better against Trump if he would won the primaries. But the scales were tipped against him. And then of course it was the total two faced rhetoric by Hillary Clinton who said one thing officially, but when she was taking a lot of money speaking to Wall street donors, she said on other things and she admitted it, it was a different message on that front.
So that was of course led to then the Democratic Party losing itself in the Russia collusion story which ended in them not finding any and yeah, meanwhile they forgot that they actually had all the elections to prepare for and didn't have a candidate when it came up and had to yeah, proper Biden at that point.
[00:26:20] Speaker B: Which of course led to criticisms of WikiLeaks saying that you're a Russian operation, that you were somehow and we have to emphasize that parties all around the world can use WikiLeaks to investigate their oppositions and it's completely non partisan. It's on all sides that you've investigated, including Vladimir Putin. What have you made of the persecution of RT of channels that don't subscribe to the prevailing narratives of the way the world is at the moment.
[00:26:54] Speaker A: I don't agree with, with the measure taken against our team and we, we do have of course stay sponsored journalism practicing all over the world and it is known that somehow sometimes they have a slant towards their sponsors, sometimes not.
You know as well what the BBC is like in Britain.
It's hard to say that they are void of influence towards their rulers and their financiers, so to speak.
But it is not a good idea to go through these measures.
[00:27:47] Speaker B: Christina Raffinson, thank you.
[00:27:51] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:27:52] Speaker B: That's it for the show. Our condolences of course to all those of you bereaved or affected by Washington's wars of aggression. We'll be back on Monday with former top UN advisor Jeffrey Sachs on how NATO's proxy war in Ukraine is pushing the world to the brink of World War iii. Until then, you can keep in touch via all our social media if it's not censored in your country. And head to our channel going underground TV on ro.com to watch new and old episodes of Going Underground. See you Monday.
