Last month, a British court gave Julian Assange permission to continue opposing the U.S. government’s attempts to extradite him to the United States to stand trial for violating the World War I Espionage Act. In truth, what U.S. officials are really targeting him for is that Assange, as head of WikiLeaks, had the audacity to reveal war crimes and other dark-side activities of the U.S. national-security state.
U.S. officials know that Assange’s recent judicial victory is a pyrrhic one. That’s because Assange continues to be jailed under brutal conditions in a maximum-security jail in England — and will continue to be — until his appeal is finally decided. What difference does it make to U.S. officials if Assange is jailed under brutal conditions in England or under brutal conditions here in the United States? The fact is that either way he is being jailed under brutal conditions.
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In fact, there is an increasing possibility that Assange will die in an English jail before the extradition proceedings are finally resolved. That would undoubtedly fill U.S. officials with glee, given that they will have been relieved of the task of putting a person on trial for revealing war crimes and other dark-side activities of the U.S. national-security state.
Keep in mind that the Assange prosecution has much more to it than just inflicting harm on Assange. U.S. officials know that they have to send everyone else a message: “The secrecy surrounding our war crimes and dark-side activites is sacrosanct. Don’t ever even think of doing what Assange did. If you do, we will do to you what we have done to him. We will finish you. Even if you are ultimately acquitted, you will be an utterly destroyed individual at the end of the process.”
Thus, U.S. officials couldn’t care less about Assange’s latest judicial “victory.” They know that British officials will keep him rotting in their jail system until his appeals are finally resolved, if ever. Ideally, from the perspective of U.S. officials, Assange will die during the pendency of his forever appeals, in which case the destruction of his life and his subsequent death in prison will have served its purpose with its message to everyone else: “Don’t ever mess with us or we will do to you what we did to Assange.”