Paul Craig Roberts

The Corrupt US & British governments, greatly aided and abetted by Western presstitutes, have destroyed the First Amendment protection of journalism. Julian Assange’s extradition to the US to stand trial for espionage signals the termination of a free press as a method of holding government accountable. Henceforth, any journalist who publishes a leaked story unfavorable to the government can be prosecuted as a spy.

During the Vietnam War the US government tried this on Daniel Ellsberg and the New York Times, but could not get away with it. But times have changed. Today’s Ellsberg–Julian Assange–and today’s New York Times–Wikileaks–are demonized as spies serving foreign intelligence.

The New York Times and The Guardian, both of which published some of the Wikileaks’ material leaked allegedly by Chelsea Manning, escaped prosecution in the case by turning on Assange and helping Washington to demonize him. The rest of the presstitute media joined in, including Wikipedia, which falsely reports the situation as it does most issues that have been turned into controversies. Today hardly anyone knows the true story.

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Christopher Black

The First Geneva Convention governing the sick and wounded
members of armed forces was signed in 1864. (Wikipedia)

(This article was first published by New Eastern Outlook, March 9, 2022)

The western mass media and governments have fallen into a frenzy of anti-Russian propaganda over Russia’s military operations in Ukraine. One element of their propaganda war is the claim that Russia’s action is illegal under international law. But is this the case and what does it mean for these countries to make that claim when they have themselves invaded and attacked too many nations to enumerate, every one of which was not only illegal, but without any moral, ethical justification whatsoever?

The law on the use of force in international relations has two aspects, codified international law as set out in the Charter of the United Nations, and the commonly understood right to self-defence.

The UN Charter is the primary document governing the use of force. Nation states do not have a right to use force in relations with other sovereign states except in very limited circumstances. It used to be, before the twentieth century, that there was an understanding that all nations had the right to use force, to go to war to ensure their interests. But the cataclysms of World War I and World War II led in each case to an attempt to prevent wars of aggression.

After WWI the League of Nations was created, supported by the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, which I have referred to in previous articles, a Treaty still in effect, in which the USA and Soviet Union and all other nations promised never to use war to solve political disputes. The League of Nations fell apart in the 1930’s with the rise of fascism and the aggressions of Italy and Germany. But the Kellogg-Briand Pact still exists.

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