Julian Assange Denounces the Censorship Regime and War Machine in New Public Statement

The dissident world has waited for over three months to hear from Julian Assange, the infamous whistleblower who languished in London’s Belmarsh Prison for five years.

In the early morning hours of October 1, the founder of WikiLeaks finally remerged, taking the opportunity to admonish both the censorship regime and the war machine in his first public statement since his release.

Julian Assange – The CIA Tried to Assassinate Me

“I am not free today because the system worked,” he remarked, “I am free because I plead guilty to journalism.” Despite his plea to end his confinement, Assange refused to admit any wrongdoing for releasing classified documents and exposing US war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq–and rightly so. Even though he wasn’t a US citizen, the Department of Justice charged Assange with the tyrannical WW1-era Espionage Act, an insane measure designed to punish war protesters. His releases boldly exposed US war crimes in Iraq and put him in the crosshairs of the US empire. During his statement, Assange sat proudly as he reiterated his intention to undermine “the world’s dirty wars and secret operations,” returning journalism to its truest and most valuable form.

Putting us on the edge of the seats, though, was Assange’s description of the CIA plot to murder him. “Under [Mike] Pompeo’s explicit direction, the CIA drew up plans to kidnap and assassinate me within the Ecuadorian embassy in London,” he said, “subjecting us to theft, hacking attacks, and the planting of false information.”

Shedding light on the insidious nature of the US security state, Assange reminded the crowd that the deep state even targeted his family. “A CIA asset was permanently assigned to my wife,” he said, “and instructions were given to obtain DNA from my 6-month-old son’s nappy.”

Amazingly, Assange’s description of the plot was somewhat charitable and did not fully capture its evil underpinnings. Documents from 2010 reveal that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asked if the government could simply carry out his assassination. “Can’t we just drone this guy?” she inquired. Her sadistic question even drew laughter from the State Department conference, which only subsided after Clinton “kept talking in a terse manner.”

The reason the Trump Administration wanted to murder Assange is clear–he told the truth about US propaganda and war crimes. For this, he fought extradition for years in London’s Ecuadorian embassy before being forcefully dragged to Belmarsh Prison in 2019.

Compare this treatment to former Director of the NSA James Clapper, who not only got away scot-free after lying about his agency’s warrantless data collection program, but was quickly hired by CNN to continue spewing regime propaganda.

Revelations about the CIA murder plot is particularly shocking given the many timeless lessons the world’s most notorious whistleblower has shared with the world—even ones that transcend his own situation. For example, way back in 2010, Assange warned that if the state’s most evil schemes weren’t countered by a vigilant populace, they would take hold and stand as lasting precedents. His astute warning reminds us of James Madison’s Report of 1800, a justification for Virginia’s nullification of the Sedition Act—a despotic attempt to criminalize free speech in the early days of the American republic.

Had our rulers listened to Assange’s advice back then, we may never have had to suffer through the horrors of the COVID regime, the wars in Syria, Libya, and Yemen, $35 trillion in national debt, the rampant destruction of the dollar, proxy wars in Ukraine and Israel, violations of free speech, and the expansion of the surveillance state.

Assange’s public statement teases what may be a return to public life and a return to true journalism. With a new independent media that did not exist in the heyday of his work, his return to public life seems perfectly suited to a world over a decade older than when he entered the Ecuadorean embassy.

The corporate media is dying, newspapers are going out of business, X has been pushed in a much more dissident-friendly direction, and long-form podcasts are influencing the world. The regime is losing control of the flow of information, and its desperate attempts to reverse this trend are noticeable.

Above all, Assange’s attacks on the censorship cult and war regime breathe new life into WikiLeaks’ original motto, “courage is contagious.” The mastermind of WikiLeaks is now free, but his story isn’t over yet. His release gives us renewed inspiration to share and live by his most redeeming ideas, and a clarion call for real human action.