>From the "criticizing Western foreign policy" department:
Three Extraordinary Australian Journalists: Pilger, Burchett and Assange
https://russia-insider.com/en/three-extraordinary-australian-journalists-pilger-burchett-and-assange/ri28270
https://ahtribune.com/world/asia-pacific/australia/3869-pilger-burchett-assange.html
Australia has produced extraordinary journalists across three generations:
Wilfred Burchett (deceased in 1983), John Pilger (80 years old but still
active) and Julian Assange (48 years old, currently in London's Belmarsh
prison).
Each of these journalists made unique contributions to our understanding of
the world. Although Australia is part of the western world, each of these
journalists exposed and criticized Western foreign policy.
Wilfred Burchett
... He covered WW2, first stationed with British troops in India then
Burma. Then he covered the Pacific campaign stationed with U.S. troops. He was
the first international journalist to report on Hiroshima after the atomic
bomb. He evaded US military restrictions to go to Hiroshima and see reality for
himself. In his story "The Atomic Plague", published in the London Daily
Express, Burchett said, “I write this as a warning to the world" and "Doctors
fall as they work". Immediately the US launched a campaign to smear his
reputation and deny the validity of his story. The US military was intent on
preventing people from knowing the long term effects of nuclear radiation.
Burchett's report from Hiroshima was broadcast world wide and called the
"scoop of the century". It exemplified his career based on first hand
observation and experience.
Over his 40 year career he reported the other side of the story from the
Soviet Union, China, Korea and Vietnam. He wrote thousands of articles and over
35 books. On China he wrote "China's Feet Unbound" in 1952. Two decades later
he wrote (with Rewi Alley) "China: The Quality of Life".
Burchett wrote "Vietnam: The Inside Story of a Guerrilla War" (1965) "My
War with the CIA: The Memoirs of Prince Norodom Sihanouk"(1974), "Grasshoppers
and Elephants: Why Vietnam Fell" (1977) and then "Catapult to Freedom: The
Survival of the Vietnamese People" (1978).
Burchett's life, experiences and observations are brilliantly recorded in
his autobiography "At the Barricades: Forty Years on the Cutting Edge of
History" (1980). They reveal the hard scrabble youth and early years, the
leftist sympathies, the decades of journalistic work based on first hand
observations.
Burchett was vilified by establishment political leaders in Australia.
His Australian passport was taken, the government refused to issue him a new
one and he was barred from entering Australia. Even his children were denied
their Australian citizenship. Finally, after 17 years, Wilfred Burchett's
citizenship and passport were restored when Gough Whitlam became Prime Minister
in 1972.
With his unassuming and affable manner, Wilfred Burchett became friends
with leaders such as Ho Chi Minh, Norodom Sihanouk, and Chou en Lai.
Bertrand Russell said, "One man, Wilfred Burchett, alerted Western public
opinion to the nature of this war and the struggle of the Vietnamese people."
This interview gives a glimpse into the character and personality of
Wilfred Burchett.
http://johnpilger.com/videos/the-outsiders-wilfred-burchett
John Pilger
... His first documentary, "The Quiet Mutiny", depicted US soldiers in
Vietnam resisting their officers and the war. In 1974, when Palestine was often
unmentionable, he produced "Palestine is Still the Issue". Nineteen years
later, he wrote the second part and described how Palestine is still the issue.
John Pilger has written/edited over ten books and made over 50 films. He
told the story of atrocities in Pol Pot's Cambodia with "Year Zero". He
exposed Indonesia's strangle hold on East Timor in "Death of a Nation: The
Timor Conspiracy". In a four year investigation, he showed how working class
victims of the drug thalidomide had been excluded from a settlement with the
drug company.
John Pilger exposed uncomfortable truths about his home country and its
treatment of aboriginal people. He did this through films including "The Secret
Country: First Australians Fight Back" (1985), "Welcome to Australia" (1999),
and "Utopia: An Epic Story of Struggle and Resistance" (2013). He gives more
history and detail in the book "A Secret Country" (1992).
In 2002 Pilger produced and movie and book titled "The New Rulers of the
World" revealing the grotesque inequality in this "globalized" world where a
few individuals and corporations have more power and wealth than entire
countries.
In 2016 Pilger came out with the urgent and prescient video "The Coming
War with China".
More recently he produced "The Dirty War on the NHS" which documents the
stealth campaign to privatize the UK's National Health System. Many of John
Pilger's films can be seen at his website johnpilger.com .
https://ahtribune.com/made%20the%20film%20%22The%20Dirty%20War%20on%20the%20NHS%22
In the 1960's and 70's, Pilger's brave and bold journalism received many
awards and he was twice recognized as Journalist of the Year. But in recent
years, there has been less acceptance as media has become more homogenized and
controlled. In 2018 Pilger said, “My written journalism is no longer welcome –
probably it’s last home was The Guardian, which three years ago got rid of
people like me and others in pretty much a purge ..."
https://pressgazette.co.uk/john-pilger-says-guardian-column-was-axed-in-purge-of-journalists-saying-what-the-paper-no-longer-says/
...
Julian Assange
... Assange has edited or co-authored at least four books. For three
years he worked with Australian journalist and co-author Suelette Dreyfus to
write "Underground : Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession in the Electronic
Frontier". First published in 1997, the Sydney Morning Herald called it
"astonishing". Rolling Stone described it as "An entirely original focus on the
bizarre lives and crimes of an extraordinary group of teenage hackers."
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9bgjkd/a-message-from-julian-assanges-ex-maths-teacher-i-appreciate-what-you-did-with-wikileaks
In 2012, Assange produced the TV series "The World Tomorrow". Over 12
segments, he interviews Ecuador President Rafael Correa, the current President
of Pakistan Imran Khan, the leader of Hezbollah Hasan Nasrallah, leaders in the
Occupy movement, Noam Chomsky, Tariq Ali and many more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Tomorrow
In 2013, Assange and WikiLeaks produced the movie Mediastan. It shows
WikiLeaks global travels to meet publishers of the secret documents. In 2014
OR Books published "When WikiLeaks met Google". It consists of a discussion
between Julian Assange and Google founder Eric Schmidt plus two companions.
Assange writes a 51 page introduction which puts the discussion in context: how
Google and other internet giants have become part of US foreign policy
establishment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediastan
In 2015 Assange edited "The WikiLeaks files: the world according to the
US Empire" and in 2016 the book "Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the
Internet" was published. Assange and three other computer experts discuss the
future of the internet and whether computers will emancipate or enslave us. One
reviewer says, "These guys are really getting at the heart of some very big
issues that practically no one (outside of Cypherpunk circles) is thinking
about."
But what makes Assange extraordinary is his work as editor in chief and
publisher of WikiLeaks. Following are a few examples of information they have
conveyed to the public:
* Corruption by family and associates of Kenyan leader Daniel Arap Moi.
* Corruption at Kaupthing Bank in the Iceland financial crisis
* Dumping of toxic chemicals in Ivory Coast.
* Killing of Reuters journalists and over 10 Iraqi civilians by US
Apache attack helicopter in "Collateral Murder" video.
https://collateralmurder.wikileaks.org/
* 92,000 documents on the war in Afghanistan (and civilian casualties
previously hidden)
* 400,000 documents on the war in Iraq (including reports showing the US
military ignoring torture by their Iraqi allies)
* corruption in Tunisia (helping spark the Arab Spring)
* NSA spying on German leader Merkel, Brazilian leader Roussef, French
presidents (Sarkozy, Hollande, Chirac) and more.
* secret agreements in the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership
* emails and files from the US Democratic National Committee
* CIA spying and other tools ("Vault 7").
... But Assange has incurred the wrath and enmity of the US government.
The "Collateral Damage" video and war logs exposed the brutal reality of US
aggression and occupation. Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the United
Nations, said the US invasion of Iraq violated international law. But there has
been no accountability.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/16/iraq.iraq
In response to WikiLeaks' revelations, the United States has ignored the
crimes and gone after the messenger who revealed the crimes. Thus Julian
Assange was confined to the Ecuador Embassy for 7 years and is now in Belmarsh
maximum security prison. The US wants him extradited to the US where he has
been charged with 18 counts of "Illegally Obtaining, Receiving and Disclosing
Classified Information". The extradition hearing is scheduled to begin on 24
February 2020.
Across Three Generations
Australia should be proud of these exceptional native sons. Each one has
made huge contributions to educating the public about crucial events.
... John Pilger is a major supporter of Julian Assange. So is the United
Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzer. In a blockbuster interview
he says "I have never seen a comparable case....The Swedish authorities ...
intentionally left him in limbo. Just imagine being accused of rape for
nine-and-a-half years by an entire state apparatus and the media without ever
being given the chance to defend yourself because no charges have ever been
filed." He goes to describe reading the original Swedish documents, saying "I
could hardly believe my eyes.... a rape had never taken place at all.... the
woman's testimony was later changed by the Stockholm police... I have all the
documents in my possession, the emails, the text messages."
https://www.republik.ch/2020/01/31/nils-melzer-about-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange
Melzer describes the refusal of governments to comply with his requests.
He sums up what is happening and the significance. "A show trial is to be used
to make an example of Julian Assange..... Four democratic countries joined
forces - the U.S., Ecuador, Sweden, and the U.K. - to leverage their power to
portray one man as a monster so that he could be later burned at the stake
without any outcry. The case is a huge scandal and represents the failure of
Western rule of law. If Julian Assange is convicted, it will be a death
sentence for freedom of the press."
The three extraordinary Australian journalists were all rebels and all
international. They all depended on freedom of the press which is now at stake.
