Transcripts For RT The Big Picture 20240714

On this weeks show moment by moment whats happening in the gulf threatens Global Economic shock and possibly war well update the situation in iran and about the controversial arms sale of a saudi arabia and fort trump in poland holland cook in washington this is the big picture on our to america. The United States department of justice is asking the United Kingdom to extradite wiki leaks founder Julian Assange in april assad was arrested at the Ecuadorian Embassy in london where he had been holed up nearly so. 7 years formal hearings are underway in london as we tape this weeks show on friday afternoon eastern time whats the latest lets ask chris hedges veteran correspondent host of on contact here on our t. V. And author of a stack of books including america the farewell tour chris joins us from london so there may be a slight delay when he and i talk chris welcome to the big picture assignats recently mystic Court Session apparently due to Health Issues and it was just a video appearance a un human rights officer who visited him in prison cited his words symptoms of prolonged exposure to psychological torture just being cooped up indoors for 7 years has to take its toll chris how did a songe look today and whats the buzz there in the london about is condition. Frale. I have visited him in the embassy has clearly lost a lot of weight he was i would describe certainly coherent but hesitant. He had to put on a very heavy pair of glasses theres some talk of his eyesight deteriorating. And of course he youre right he had to testify from a video link in the hospital wing of the high security belmarsh prison. There is no question that after nearly 7 years in the Ecuadorian Embassy. No exposure to sunlight exercise proper medical care it has taken both a physical and a psychological toll the election of one in radio. To the presidency of ecuador saw the ecuadoran government which had granted him political asylum and given him ecuador and citizenship it became a very hostile environment one where they were of course tempting to push him out. And hes now in whats by all descriptions of very violent and. Unclean and. Repressive one of the most notorious prisons in Great Britain so yeah i mean its neils melzer the u. N. Repertory on torture and likens his condition to people who have prolonged exposure to torture solitary confinement and. The stress of being in a war zone as he when he visited julian assad with 2 medical officials who specialize in psychological torture when the brits arrest of the size of a single charge by the u. S. Government was conspiracy to commit computer intrusion by helping Chelsea Manning hack into the pentagon then last month came 17 new. Its as i understand the u. S. A u. K. Extradition treaty he can only be prosecuted for crimes for which he was extradited but chris could that disparity thwart extradition or if we do get him back here could that prevent him from being charged on anything other than that single count and not as i understand it its interesting that the only time julian spoke at length this morning in the courtroom was to address the lesser charge because hes charged with 17 counts under the espionage act each of wood which carries a maximum turn a term of 10 years so thats 170 years the attempt to. Hack a government computer carries a 5 year term and that was the 1st charge that was announced but julian wanted to make it clear to the court that neither he nor wiki leaks hacked into a government computer that they publish the material provided by Chelsea Manning the socalled warlord war logs on iraq and afghanistan but they did not hack and indeed the u. S. Government thats and youre right to say conspiracy because what happened was Chelsea Manning then known as Bradley Manning private Bradley Manning asked for assistance from julian we know this because the u. S. Released transcripts asked for assistance from julian in getting into account to mask her identity julian said he would look into it but was never able to. Accomplish it never happened but that was what i think he was most concerned about today in court among other information classified is secret the Justice Department accuses assize of disclosing the names of local afghans and iraqis who had provided information to u. S. And Coalition Forces which create a grave and imminent risk that the innocent people he named would suffer serious physical harm and or arbitrary. Tension because the spy game relies on friends in low places isnt that off limits. Well you know there was a study actually carried out by the state department under Hillary Clinton that said that from all of that information that was released there was no evidence that anyone had lost their life and in fact remember this was not top secret this was classified but it wasnt the most sensitive material and so. You know i think that they would have a stronger case if they could point to an instance where the release of a particular name resulted in physical harm to that particular person but they cant do that right assigned his attorney contends that these unprecedented charges demonstrate the gravity of the threat the criminal prosecution of Julian Assange which poses to all journalists in their endeavor to inform the public about actions that have been taken by the u. S. Government and when assigned was arrested Edward Snowden tweeted the weakness of the u. S. Charge against son is shocking the allegation he tried and failed to help crack a password during their world famous reporting has been public for nearly a decade it is the count of obamas d. O. J. Refused to charge saying it endangered journalism free speech makes strange bedfellows listen to fox news talking head judge Andrew Napolitano Congress Shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press thats from the 1st and then the values underlying the 1st amendment that the press must be free to expose all the government does and whatever the press has in its hands no matter how it acquired it is free to publish those materials as long as theyre newsworthy and no one can harm a hair on the head of anyone who does it chris when meryl streep played Katharine Graham and tom hanks played ben bradlee the post was nominated for best picture oscar if those people were heroes why is a songe a villain. Well thats a good question i mean as someone who worked for 15 years for the New York Times and publish classified information i find whats happening now. With this extradition request extremely frightening and im not alone the New York Times the wall street journal the Washington Post the l a times have all written editorials there is a deep concern that this creates a legal precedent to criminalize the publication of classified material but not only that to seize someone who is not a u. S. Citizen julian a songe is an Australian Citizen he was until lenin merino revoked his citizenship in ecuador and citizen wiki leaks is not a us publication it is not a publication based in the us so we are entering uncharted judicial persecution and and you know even the Mainstream Media which unfortunately was complicit in the character assassination in terms of amplifying the character assassination that was carried out against julian after these same publications published voluminous. Parts of those war logs. You know even theyve woken up so this is an extremely dangerous moment certainly within my own lifetime the most dangerous assault on the ability of the oppressed the press to shine a light on the inner workings of power its extremely frightening. And we will see this process will go on these Court Hearings and dates we saw today will continue and it appears that the actual extradition trial will take place somewhere around february 25th but theres clearly the home secretary yesterday. Signed an extradition order there certainly london and washington. Seem to be walking in lockstep but its a very its a very dangerous moment for for the press yeah im reminded of the old gag that freedom of the press belongs to anybody who can afford one i got about a minute but i need to get a little philosophical when the founders wrote the 1st amendment they couldnt imagine the internet but despite all the misinformation and disinformation online is not wiki leaks the ultimate expression of what the founders were after. Yeah i mean wiki leaks publishing on the in the digital age is done online and of course weve watched traditional news print migrate to sites online including the New York Times but i think julians right that wiki leaks functions as a publisher and should have all the legal rights of any other publisher. Out of time but i got to ask you anyway so give me the short answer President Trump has coined the term fake news and he rails against journalist as the enemy of the people how do you expect the American People will view julian assad. Well theres been a huge dissin from ation campaign against him both attacking his character you know suppose that rape allegations he was never charged with any sexual offense in sweden but you know the dissent from Asian Campaign has been quite fierce to isolate and demonize him in the eyes of the public and of course that hurts those of us who realize how important this issue is and what his freedom his personal freedom and his freedom to publish mean to the rest of us are chris hedges in london thank you for joining the big picture. Thank you. After a breakdown in negotiations president s trump and she may soon again meet to hash out a trade deal the stakes couldnt be higher both sides need a perceived win failure could witness the Global Economy divided into rival blocks and internet. Is crashing on the Global Markets so when that happens to the. Nation if i go home countries Michael Center banks might remind all the buy for gold thats making a new all time highs australian dollars almost russian rubles almost denies and Canadian Dollars almost as a euro so yeah all over the world its creeping higher because of the trust being eroded. Welcome in Michael Maloof who is a veteran pentagon oficial and we want to talk about whats going on in iraq and michael recently i got to tell you i got chills when i heard you on the newscast. Used the phrase false flag about the attack on those tankers there how suspicious is this grainy footage that might pompei oh suggests that iran is behind tacking the norwegian and japanese tankers im very concerned about it number one there is no time to time date. There is no indication that that that the ship in question is the is the actual ship there is no no reference no context and i recall back in the slam dunk evidence that the United States Intelligence Service had on the deadly indian iraq in 2003 and we know what that amounted to and here again pompei always expects us to believe the spill as as the most definitive evidence to date and we should not we should be very skeptical and the question then arises what do those limpets get on the side of a limping is a magnetic bomb and thats what they were because the explosions occurred above the waterline that means they had to be a magnetic. Means of holding that that bomb there and as a consequence were at work how could that have happened and im really concerned that it might have again the false flag is that is that you you have people who want to precipitate a conflict and whose who would and what those ships coming out of u. A. E. And saudi arabia laden with with japanese cargo and the prime japanese Prime Minister visiting iraq at the time. Someone had to have access to the manifests and everything like that in order to know in order to coordinate that kind of action an episode in the gulf in order to precipitate some kind of a confrontation so i think we need to go back to see who might who would in whose interest would it be did to cause Something Like that. Wouldnt be the iranians it would probably be the someone and you east certainly saudi arabia and israel and there was some talk about possibly drones used as well right there were explosives from the sky you know thats what thats what the captain of the ship said but it also could have been just shrapnel flying off from the explosion of the of the limpet mine on the side of the ship. We all know we dont know lets bring in a professor or a Peter Koos Nick and welcome to the big picture peter with all thats at stake and with japan a key a rainy an ally would iran be as their foreign minister put it stupid enough to launch these attacks and if they didnt who do you think did. We dont know if countries do act irrationally. But there doesnt seem to be any reason why iran would do this why iran would try to provoke the United States at a time like this when they know that there are people in the city ministration who are just dying for an excuse to attack iran theyve been people in the American Defense establishment for more than a decade who have won almost 2 decades now whove wanted to go after iran and so you know thats both pompei o in fact the one thing that trumps at Foreign Policy team agrees on is their hatred of iran so what iran provoked them it doesnt make any sense that that iran would do that yet clearly the you know theres theres also that we know that theres a history of false flag operations. And many of them if occurred in that region we know that besides the pomp ayos who was the us to go to war with iran there are people in the United Arab Emirates leaders in. Theyre the saudis the israelis who are all pushing for a u. S. Confrontation with iran so there are a lot of people have got interest and capabilities we do know that the japanese operator of the tanker said that it was not a ma and that his crew said that they were hit by a flying object and so hes questioning or disputing openly sure the what the u. S. Is saying at this point so there is says hed be any evidence and we have a history of this right anybody who lived through it remembers the invasion of iraq or the gulf of tonkin and those that wars are repeatedly started with only false intelligence i can remember only the same people i can remember colin Powell Holding up that vial when he was testifying at the u. N. It was a sad scene michael you recently tipped me off to a story related to iran about isis and im not seeing what you told me anywhere else give us the next level of detail well its emerging its an out and evolving thing and ill just lay it out. In a very stark terms number one we have isis now leaving syria somewhat heading into ambar province in the west of iraq number one the u. S. Is setting up bases there and in anbar and in neighboring. Salaheddine which is all sunni controlled. Is that going to be left as a platform to to spring against iran is the u. S. Going to be using isis as a stepping stone to to create even more internal have a conservative iran meantime coming in from afghanistan you have isis establishing itself very remarkably in at least 4 provinces one of some of which are just outside the province of kabul and in neighboring against the. Tribal areas in pakistan and in further south in the pakistan of baluchistan area once again you have a concentration of isis into the blue sheria which could also in not only pakistan but also could go into. The blues portion of iran right all sunni controlled and this is what im concerned about that in effect isis is forming a Pincer Movement out that could hit one day after we were told they were defeated meanwhile United States senators from both sides of the aisle want to force a vote to block President Trumps emergency arms sales to saudi arabia and other gulf states senator chris murphy a democrat is cosponsoring a bill with republican todd young and says the process we are setting in motion will allow congress to weigh in on the totality of our security relationship with saudi arabia not just one arm sale and restore Congress Role in Foreign Policy making even staunch trump ally Lindsey Graham has condemned the deal which the president made under any merge and seemed declaration that end runs congressional approval all in more than 8000000000. 00 of armaments would go to saudi arabia the United Arab Emirates and jordan if the deal flies defense contractor raytheon would work directly with the saudis on the kind of precision guided weapons attack thats been killing civilians in war torn yemen where the usa supports saudi. Arabia against iran backed rebels u. N. Calls whats happening there the worst humanitarian crisis in the world republican cosponsor senator young says we cannot permit u. S. Military equipment to worsen the situation on the ground by law Congress Reviews all arms sales trump sidesteps that calling this an emergency a peter in your view its an emergency on what basis. Its an emergency that weve created and its not an emergency in the way anybody defines an emergency but if we provoke a crisis in the area which weve been doing systematically since we pulled out of the nuclear deal since weve raised the sanctions since weve put so much pressure on the europeans and our other allies to stop their deal with iran since weve put pushed iran into a corner backed them into a corner recreate and then now creating this situation whoevers responsible for these attacks in the gulf you know so now trump says its an emergency and he did the same thing with the caravans coming up from honduras. In Central America from creates phony crises phony emergencies and then tries to go behind the back of congress in order to get done what he wants to get done this is not an emergency that in any way requires the United States to go around congress to force these kinds of arms sales crying but all this whole situation is getting more and more dangerous now with this latest escalation sure and the accusations the seemingly unfounded accusations against iran i want to talk about poland where President Trump says we will relocate u. S. Troops stationed elsewhere in europe this past week the host of the president of poland to which were selling fighter jets mr trump suggested that one or 2000 of the 52000 troops we havent germany would relocate to what he. Its a world class facility polish officials want to call it for trump here is mr trump with polish president due to in the oval office. I think that russia will treat poland with respect just like the rest of the world is treated poland is really built up a great country you know they get they get hurt unfortunately. Too often right too often they are there in the middle of everything and when bad things happen it seems that folate is always the 1st one thats in there are so unfortunate no i hope that russia and poland and germany and everybody is going to get along thats what i want i want everybody we get along russia will treat poland with respect michael how does the stepped up u. S. Military presence in poland impact u. S. Russia relations it doesnt help it but its not going to amount to anything and i mean youve got a 1000 rotating troops going in there who are basically unarmed and russia if it wanted to i want to be careful they could they could mount 50000. 00 troops overnight i mean it would just overwhelm so its all its all show all show to the back hall and i doubt that trump will come into being and and for that matter i doubt that poland can afford to pay for those 30. 00 something f. 35. 00 that also is in the bargain and given given all the troubles that they have in that and the cost overruns sure its just monumental could i go back to your previous question for a 2nd i got 30 seconds go ahead ok the the the there rush to approve that that 8000000000 i think are going to pay for arms and what have you to go to those sudanese in in iraq you know and others and and trump will override any veto of that. Yeah the genie is out of the bottle you professor Peter Koos Nick and former pentagon official Michael Maloof. Thank you for watching the big picture of holland cook in washington back next week question. What is it going to coin is magic a. New type of Digital Currency the centralized digital scarcity chancellor. Of 2nd or bank thats called the genesis blog for reason because being a civil disobedience a source of optimism because i can control my own financial destiny its just a new way of coming to consensus its a game changer in the Human History and this is columbus discovering the new world this Paradigm Shifting Technology that transforms economics and finance in a heartbeat the apollo 11 landing. To the max and stacey. I think you know humans all over the world. All very similar you know west to the west in those did not invent democracy you know. Everywhere in World History in india in china if you go far enough back creating inclusion in soviet union you know after 990 was not so matter of adopting the u. S. Constitution it was a matter of finding what works in the cultural context. Leg. Length. Leg. Leg. Length. Oh. Please. Liz. Lets just say. Playing. Very well might continue watching us in such. Americanos or this is the kaiser report whats happening in the global world well max you know theres been a lot of topsy turvy. Especially emanating from the global empire that is the United States and that is causing a lot of distrust of whether or not our trade deals are any good or whether or not our word is any good whether or not we might invade somebody whether or not we might you know spy on an ally like we did under obama with Angela Merkel for example like so theres a lot of distrust going on and of course the diplomatic speak is that were all fine everythings great everythings going to be sorted out and this is just the art of the deal but one thing you can look at and the data you can always point to is not only the invention and creation and the flourishing of big queen for example from 2008 since the financial crisis but also the accumulation of gold and how people are nations in particular are turning to gold the global collapse and trust has driven a secret bull market in gold and this is a tweet from Dominic Frisby and he has links to his article that he wrote