Introducing Kelly B. Vallejos from Antiwar.com/Vallejos, a regular writer for us there.
She is a Washington DC based freelance writer, longtime political reporter for Foxnews.com and contributing editor at the American Conservative Magazine.
She's also a Washington correspondent for Homeland Security Today Magazine and her most recent article at Antiwar.com is Julian Assange, man of the decade.
So welcome to the show, Kelly.
Thank you, Scott, and happy new year.
Happy new year and as you say in this article, happy new decade to you as well.
I guess judging from the title alone, you somehow inoculated yourself and have become immune to what TV news wants you to think.
Man of the decade, why I think maybe you're guilty of treason now.
Well perhaps I think I'm just making an astute analysis there in which I see this year as a turning point finally in a decade that's been riddled with loss of civil liberties, with the suppression of the truth, with war, with anger, with futility on behalf of the people.
And I see Julian Assange as a sort of culmination or a symbol of all of that frustration.
And I think the time has come finally for something to give, as they say.
And I think it's come in the form of Julian Assange.
I think he is both the creation of the post 9-11 world and also perhaps, I hate to use such a strong word, but the savior from the post 9-11 world.
Well now you talk about in your article some of the things that we've lost over this last decade and it's kind of fun for me to imagine the counterfactual about how it could have been if say, oh I don't know, Harry Brown, the libertarian candidate, had been elected in the year 2000 instead of George W. Bush.
He used to say, it doesn't have to be this way.
That's what he said back then after he lost.
And it's funny because if you really stop now at the end of the decade and count through, there's really quite a bit of genies let go of their bottles, as you put it in this piece.
Correct.
And I think we can't say woulda, coulda, shoulda.
I think if there had been, barring an extraordinary win by Harry Brown, whether it was a Democrat, or a Republican, I'm convinced we would have had the same sort of national security apparatus built out of what happened in 9-11.
And I don't, I think this was a establishment reaction.
George Bush might have been, he was dominated by the neoconservatives, so it was easier perhaps.
But what we see now is our national security state has been expanded to a global stage.
And so you are seeing people like Julian Assange, WikiLeaks, protesters throughout the world reacting to what has become an American empire out of control.
And this is, 9-11 set the course, but yet the establishment was ready and set for this.
I think it would have happened under an Al Gore just as much as a George Bush.
I think after 10 years, and I say this in the article, there have been protests, there have been lawsuits, there have been people struggling, you know, here and abroad against this apparatus, this global war on terror.
Julian Assange, WikiLeaks, has found a way to turn the tables, has found a way to puncture the balloons, to get in there and change, like I say, the rules of the game.
It is the first step of a, I want to say revolution, against this global state, this power elite that has been so predominant in the last 10 years, built on not peace, not truth, not bringing equanimity to humanity, but built on war and fear.
Yeah, you know, George Bush, you say, well, this is the first war of the 21st century, and I should just cringe, you know, for the lack of vision implied in that statement, you know, like what a great way to usher off the dawn of our new era, you know, 10 years out from the Cold War, the unlimited cultural supremacy, at least, of the United States across the world, and all they did was just turn the whole world against us since then, as well as, you know, this is something I've talked with the different lawyers on this show about over the years, was the, I guess Garrett Gourette would have called it the revolution within the form, where the president claims such authority under the authorization to use military force and his inherent powers of the presidency, and that goes for Bush and Obama as well, that, you know, they were basically just drawing lines in order to cross them to see whether they could do it without getting impeached, and the answer was always yes, and they just keep going and going and going, and they've set so many precedents now that you'd be hard-pressed to find part of the Bill of Rights that they're not in direct violation of, maybe the Third Amendment, you know, the one about quartering soldiers in your house or something, but any of the rest, you could find, like, at least, you know, major inroads into our most basic protections.
Well, and parallel to all of this, you know, just getting back to Julian Assange for a second, parallel to all of this, you know, he was growing up as a kid in this era of rapidly advancing technology.
He was growing up in a situation in which he had an inherent resistance and suspicion of government and authority, and he is a very bright guy, and his, you know, once he got his, you know, what they say, his schism together, you know, he became a force for the, early on, you know, when he was in college, you know, developing this open-source software, and his first major breakthrough was to develop technology in which human rights workers in the field, say, in Africa, were able to take, to collect data that was sensitive, that was, that could get them in trouble, to put it in this lockbox that we all know is WikiLeaks.
He started developing this years ago, you know, while this global war on terror is going on, you know, and he's developing ways in which people who really want to make life better for other human beings are able to operate in the field, you know, without fearing the government, without fearing authority and corrupt officials.
And so when he, so he clashes directly with the very zeitgeist of the global war on terror, which is to suppress the truth, which is to suppress protest, which is to keep the public uninformed for its own safety.
And so it's not a surprise that somebody like Julian Assange rises in our profile, and at a time when we need, we have fought so many other ways and it hasn't worked, getting at the truth seems to be the most important way to puncture the GWAT, the global war on terror.
And he was the guy to do it because he just doesn't have flash and charisma.
This guy is smart.
This guy is a computer programmer.
He has figured out a way to get out of the truth using today's technology, something that we supposedly cherish and push as a culture, always going forward.
Well, he found a way to use that to the advantage of the people, not just the government, not just the corporation.
Right.
Well, you know, what's funny to me is that implied in all of this, in the very existence of WikiLeaks, I guess, as you say, it's a reaction to this, you know, the way things have gone in this decade since the 9-11 attacks, that there's all this secrecy to be revealed.
There's so many things going on that, hey, look, another one came out about, hey, look, they did lie to us about the pressure that they put on the Ethiopian government to invade Somalia.
And hey, look, they did lie to us about who was bombing the people, that is the women and the children of Yemen.
And hey, look, they lied to us about what was going on with the Bata Brigade torture squads in Iraq and the number of people they killed with American help.
And they did lie to us about this, that and the other thing.
How many other secrets are there out there?
Apparently, there's 260,000 documents worth of cover-up of brutal truth.
You know, that's not Julian Assange's fault.
You know what I mean?
It didn't have to be like that.
They made it that way.
Right.
And you have all these apologists for the government line saying, well, you know, a lot of this stuff is not controversial.
This is just regular, you know, discourse between diplomats.
And we're putting all that in jeopardy, this confidentiality between diplomats and and their relationships.
I'm thinking, well, if it's if it's if it's no big deal and I'm sure you've heard this before, then why?
I mean, why is this guy's life in danger right now?
You know, why is Bradley Manning about to be executed for all we know?
You know, because these are serious secrets.
And I don't care what David Brooks and the rest of these, you know, Washington style pundits say, this is serious business.
They've been keeping they've been keeping the truth from from the people.
And like you pointed out, serious stuff regarding the war and what's being done in our name and in other countries.
And secrets about things like the NSA spying on us, violating our rights, in which case you'll find David Brooks right there saying that if you, Kelly, have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to worry about and everything about your life is the government's business.
Every debit you ever debit on your debit card, your cash card or whatever, is their business and forever to write.
Right.
And yeah, as I pointed out, and they're doing that as we speak, collecting dossiers on American citizens, just because, you know, I might have a vendetta against my neighbor for growing their grass too long.
And I call up and say, you know, he's been playing, you know, sort of like Muslim music at night, you know, and I see strange men with beards going in and out of his apartment, you know, they're all of a sudden collecting information on my neighbor without charge without cause.
And this is happening, you know, and but that's okay.
That's okay to the David Brooks of the world, that they that all this secret information is being collected on us.
And I think we're gonna I, you know, I don't know what's going to happen with the Bank of America and the corporate secrets that WikiLeaks reveal.
But you know, this, this is a creation, the government created this, the corporation created this, and now they're going to have to pay the piper.
And it's going to be ugly, I really think it's going to be ugly.
Well, as you point out, too, they can't do anything about this.
And the nature of the internet, there's already thousands of WikiLeaks mirrors all over the place.
And if, you know, President for Life Petraeus sends the goon squad to go murder everybody involved in WikiLeaks today, they'll all just spring right back up tomorrow in in brand new bodies, there'll be brand new people doing the very same thing.
And I mean, hey, it's as easy as clicking the upload button, right?
You can't stop the signal, right?
And this is journalism from now on in the world.
And that's and that's a good point.
Because a lot of this and you're cruising around on the internet, and you see, establishment, quote, unquote, journalists, you know, debating and arguing about whether or not Julian Assange and WikiLeaks represent a true journalistic organization, or they're really journalists, we know this is what it's going to come down to if the government decides to press on with some espionage or other federal charges.
Is he or isn't he a journalist, but there's an existential debate here, which I find very tedious.
Because hell, yeah, he's a journalist.
And there's been debates over what who and who is not a journalist since the founding of this country.
I'm sure there were plenty of Tories running around saying that Samuel Adams wasn't a journalist.
But to this day, if anybody going to dispute his cause, and what he did for the revolution.
Now, you can debate me on whether there's a revolution going on right now.
But we can't go back, we cannot go back to the period before these WikiLeaks came out, we could debate on whether he's a journalist or not.
But he has started something.
Well, I think that is such a funny debate, too.
Because, you know what, I need a press pass to have free speech.
The freedom of the press is simply really an outgrowth of the freedom of speech, my inherent right to my natural right to say whatever I want on my own property or property I'm invited on, or public property, for that matter, as they call it.
And, you know, so if a private citizen with my garbage man, find some classified documents and tell somebody about them, he doesn't have free speech, or say he's a real crank.
And now he has an agenda.
But now he doesn't have the right to say, hey, look what I found that he didn't steal.
Right?
It's crazy.
Well, you know, and if you really boil it all down, a lot of it comes down to partisan politics.
It comes down to establishment politics.
You know, I didn't hear all the right-wingers flipping out when whomever leaked those emails.
Remember the email of the global warming scientist?
Right.
You know, where was the big outrage about the leak there?
It all comes down to, you know, whose leak is in their best which leak is in their best interest.
And personally, you know, I'm tired of it.
We have a journalistic culture here, establishment in Washington, that's been sitting in its own fat for the last, you know, 30, 40 years, all of its principles and gumption gone, you know, and they decide who's in and who's out, you know, who gets to pontificate on this or that on television or in the press, you know, and there's been a real, I hate to overuse the word, but a revolution in journalism itself in the last 10 years, where, you know, the old rules no longer apply.
And I think this was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, of these establishment types, because they've seen their profession pulled out from under them.
They have to compete along with everybody else, along with the blogger down the street, you know, and the pundit over here, you know, the kid just getting out of college is, you know, willing to write for free on the internet and gets, you know, gets a lot of attention, you know, it's the old rules don't apply.
And Julian Assange comes and he just blows it all out of the water.
And the establishment just doesn't know what to do about it.
And that's why you see all these peevish, you know, blowback and, you know, commentary, you know, like Justin Raimondo had this great column the other day about Mike Lind, you know, and his whole rant and discourse about why Julian Assange, you know, must be put in jail, he's not a real journalist, you know, and Mike Lind comes from that establishment.
They just can't get over it.
Well, that one's really disappointing to me, because he's the author of the great piece that everybody can find at antiwar.com that I believe was an original piece for antiwar.com back in 2003, how the neoconservatives conquered Washington and launched, which I love to link to over and over again, you know, it's such an important piece, and it's really a shame to see the the partisanship and play there.
Well, and I and I not and not to put a damper on it, but he was also the author of the book, Vietnam, the necessary war.
This is a guy that goes back and forth.
And, you know, I maybe he's just, he just doesn't know whether or not to defend the establishment or rail against it at any given time.
But it seems like right late, like Justin pointed out, he he's, you know, hot on defending it now, even if it means smearing Julian Assange, you know, which was, which was really disgusting to me, is like, Justin pointed out the conflation of Julian Assange and Bert, you know, the birthers, the truthers that the word cult, you know, repeated often, you know, enough to get it in your head that the Julian Assange and all of his defenders, even those who you would consider marginalized, and maybe kind of out there whack jobs are all in the same.
And that's a classic smear.
But it's harder to stomach when it's somebody out of the establishment, who's using their position as an author and intellectual think tanker to engage in these smears.
But you know what, it's not, you know, it doesn't matter in the long run.
It just doesn't matter that this train is going forward, whether they like it or not.
Well, have you been surprised or dismayed at all by the poll numbers?
I saw what 70 or high 60s or low 70% of the American people are convinced that Julian Assange is Saddam Hussein, he must be hunted down to the last spider hole, this terrible guy.
I'm not surprised.
I'm not surprised.
Because the majority of Americans when polled, I are happy to hand over their civil liberties at any given moment, if it means that suppose, you know, if they think it's, it's going to make them feel, quote, unquote, safer.
I mean, it's, it's an, it's an endless, you know, frustration to someone like me, you know, who sees that, you know, what the government is doing is using this excuse of safety and security to rip away all of our civil liberties and put us through these humiliating, you know, acrobatics of getting pat downs and full body scans.
And, you know, I mean, there's that great article that I cited about monitoring America, where you have cops that infrared cameras now that are just sweeping through the grocery store, you know, parking lot, just, you know, going through all of the license plate to see maybe you have a parking ticket, maybe you have a warrant, maybe you're not, you know, paying your child support, you know, and Americans don't seem to get it.
They don't think that this is a slippery slope.
They seem to just love to buy the argument that this is just a normal course, if we want to be, quote, unquote, safe in a post 911 world.
So I'm not surprised that they are convinced that Julian Assange is the Antichrist.
But it's disappointing.
It really is.
Um, I don't know what else to say.
I think I've lost faith in the American public, at least the ones that are polled, you know, during the time when they believe that we were supposed to that we should have invited Iraq.
Remember that?
Yeah, it is.
It's like watching the slowest motion train wreck and being unable to do a thing about it, too.
I mean, it for the people who didn't buy into the Iraq thing, which was a half the people in America.
Just think how absurd for all you people who fell for it out there.
Think of how absurd you all look to those of us who didn't buy it, who who realized pretty clearly that, hey, the guy with the mustache and the olive green is not interested in working with the guy with the beard and the robes.
And no, they're not together against us, dummy.
And no, they're not.
They don't have a nuclear weapons program.
We've been bombing them every day for 12 years for crying out loud.
Saddam Hussein doesn't even control the entirety of his own country.
How could he be a threat to Israel or America or anybody else?
And and yeah, and then the other 50 percent said, how could you be against a war against the people who did the 9-11 attack against us?
You jerks, you traitors.
Well, you know, and I and I think you and I are about the same age.
And I remember growing up hearing and reading and hearing and reading that, you know, that the government had lied to us in Vietnam.
I mean, you just had, you know, just interviewed, you know, Daniel Ellsberg.
The government was lying to us.
Everybody knows it's a known fact.
But yet the same people that will say that and the same children like myself will grow up hearing that don't seem to want to believe that the government would lie about anything else, about spying on Americans, about the urgency for war in Iraq.
And it seems like maybe it's a defense mechanism.
You know, people that most people I'm thinking just want to naturally believe that their government is benevolent, that their government is there to protect them, and that when they tell them something that they should believe it, it may be it.
It is a defense.
It may be opening up and saying, well, maybe Julian Assange isn't the antichrist.
Maybe he has something to say.
Maybe he's actually helping us.
Maybe the government is lying.
Maybe that's too hard for people to confront.
Yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, no, I mean, I'm totally with you there.
In fact, mostly what I learned about Vietnam, I remember my friends, parents hated the Vietnam War.
And if somebody brought up Vietnam, they had some things to say about it.
I mean, that is exactly the way I grew up, just like you about this was the consensus.
This thing was wrong.
And and, you know, 60,000 Americans killed somewhere between three and five million Vietnamese.
Nobody really knows.
That's a pretty big rounding error, if you ask me.
But the thing about that that was most visible, of course, was all the guys in army jackets on the side of the road.
And when, you know, I guess it was in the 80s during my childhood.
I don't know if it was like this before, but in the 80s is when I started seeing people standing on the side of the road with signs and they almost invariably at least appeared to be Vietnam veterans.
Now, how can anybody close their eyes and go into denial about that?
And that was something that I remember probably even talking about on the radio back in 2002 was that, you know, somehow everybody loves the troops.
They focus all the support or negative sentiment about the war itself into sentiment about the soldiers and their heroic mission.
So if you're against the war, you're against the soldiers and all that.
But it just sort of all went without saying that this is not going to be like Vietnam, that we all love our soldiers so much that nothing bad is going to happen to them.
Betrayed by the VA, driven to suicide, et cetera, et cetera.
It was people in 2002 couldn't imagine for a minute the disgraceful way that American veterans would be treated, even though they couldn't.
All they had to do was drive to work and see the actual result of that same policy from a generation before right in front of their eyes.
Well, it's a weird psychology too, because I come from a community where many, many, many men went off to war in Vietnam and did not come back as your typical working class community.
And sadly, it is that community, you know, that I would say middle, lower economic strata that seems to be most vulnerable to these arguments about patriotism, sticking with the troops, you know, supporting your president in time of war.
You would think this was the group of people who would be the most skeptical, the most suspicious, and they're not.
And I think that is the saddest thing, that George W. Bush was able to turn around and harness these national feelings away from the suspicion and from the Vietnam era views and feelings about government.
He was able to turn that right around.
And I think that's something to study for years to come, because we've talked about Rolling Thunder and the Vietnam veterans that drive down to Washington every year.
You know, these guys are hardcore pro-war, and these are the guys that got stuck the most by the government's policy in Vietnam.
These are the guys that should be marching at the head of any anti-war protest.
But there, I got this classic picture.
There's George Bush in his cheesy flak jacket walking down the street, flanked by Rolling Thunder dudes, you know, as though, you know, as though they were hand in glove.
And he, you know, it's almost like it's almost admirable in its audacity.
Right.
Yeah, just like Cheney's speech before the Veterans of Foreign Wars in August of 2002 that laid down the gauntlet on Iraq that, look, we want regime change and we're telling you that they're making nukes so that we can have our regime change.
And there he is, he's speaking to the veterans of even World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and saying, give us your sons, give us your grandsons, because we have to do this.
And that entire speech, as there's Scott Ritter and others wrote about at the time, but anybody could go through that VFW speech and point out that every bit of it was a lie and he knew it.
And that, you know, these are the people that are the first to be betrayed by our government, just like a foreign leader who's our closest friend is next on our list.
You know, those who serve the U.S. state most loyally are always the first to just be thrown in the pile when they're used up.
Right.
Oh, yeah, it's pretty bad.
And, you know, as far as the American people go, you know, just to get back to Julian Assange and the whole man of the year, man of the decade thing, you know, it's really what's really telling is, you know, that the Time magazine selection of this, you know, Mark Zuckerberg, you know, Facebook, you know, Facebook dude.
And, you know, I did a piece for anti-war over the summer, you know, and I was comparing Julian Assange to the rise of Julian Assange as sort of like the evil antichrist paralleling the rise of Mark Pincus, who is the CEO of Zynga, who basically runs, you know, basically runs these Farmville and Fishville games that you find on Facebook and people pay to build farms and have parties on their farms.
It is like a total time waster and actually sucks money right out of people's bank accounts.
But it's a major distraction.
I mean, if Albus Huxley was alive right now, he'd be like, Oh my God, Farmville is like brave new world because people are totally wrapped up and spending their money on these useless zombie-like games.
But yet Mark Pincus CEO is a celebrated dude.
He is at the top of his game.
He's, I just read an article.
He's about to become one of the next new billionaire.
You know, people describe him in these glowing ways because he's, you know, because he's a businessman, you know, he's found a way to fleece the American people and the American people love it.
They love Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, even though they're getting fleeced there too.
But somebody like Julian Assange, who is actually peddling information to make our lives better is a pariah.
And I think that says everything about the American people, because we believe in this crap.
We believe in the Mark Zuckerberg and the Facebooks and the Farmvilles.
And we look at Julian Assange with a skew as though he's not normal.
He's an alien to us.
Right.
When after all this technology was all pushed by the Pentagon all along to be used against the enemies of the American state, whether here or abroad, that's what all this, all these microchips come from that this whole time.
That's who's pushed all this.
And so some of us can at least try to use this double edged sword back against them in a way, the best we can under antiwar.com and our WikiLeaks.
But to see people choose to use it for Hulu only is I agree.
You know, it's a shame.
Right.
And we wonder why people are walking around answering polls like that and saying, well, I don't care.
I don't care if I have to strip down naked and get a full body search as long as it makes me free.
It's because they're the same people who spent 12 hours a day on Farmville living in La La Land.
It could care less about reading a book or picking up a newspaper.
And I hope I'm not insulting anybody out there, but we need to get a grip.
Yeah.
Well, and, you know, there's a poll here, too, about I think it's on antiwar.com today or maybe yesterday.
About 70 percent of the American people believe that the Iranians are making nuclear weapons.
And I was thinking since we just went through that, would it be too difficult to just ponder for a moment and wonder?
You know, I know everybody on TV says that and everything, but I wonder if there's anybody out there who's ever tried to write an article indicating otherwise that maybe I ought to take a look at all.
I wonder if I could even try to before I answer the poll question.
Yes, I think so.
And yes, maybe something's got to be done about it.
Yeah, well, they're too busy on Farmville, I think.
They really are, because if you just sit and you're watching Fox News or CNN or MSNBC, you got the radio on NPR, whatever, doesn't matter, you know, and you're listening to it as a background noise and basically you're pundit after pundit saying, yes, they have, they're about to get a weapon or they do have weapons and they're hiding it.
And then you have some mealy mouth guy on the other side going, well, they might, but we don't really know.
So what is your takeaway from that?
Your takeaway is, yeah, the Iranians are lying.
They got something.
On with my Farmville.
You know, like you said, you have to make the first step.
So here's Julian Assange dumping all this information and most people are just disregarding it.
Right.
Oh, I think he should be executed.
He should be arrested.
You know, I don't know.
It's embarrassing.
That's what's getting you down here, I think, is you're looking at what's happening in America now from this sort of third person point of view and thinking, ah, geez, you're blowing it really badly.
This is and it seems so obvious that it doesn't have to be this way.
And yet we continue to persist.
Right.
And I think that's why people are so excited about Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, and they're willing to go out and protest for this guy because they see somebody as last, you know, in an organization that at last has, you know, has the gut to go out there and stand up to the, quote, unquote, man, you know.
And this is this is a this it's not a first, but on this quite this scale we haven't seen before.
And people are I think people, you know, are rooting for him.
You know, they're willing to put money down for his bail.
They're ready to see where this is going to go, because it's almost as though if he goes down and WikiLeaks goes down, you know, regardless, yeah, the information will still come out.
But symbolically, that would be a big blow, because I think this is the first time it's like somebody it's like somebody breaking out of jail and you're watching it in a movie.
You're almost rooting for the guy.
You're realizing that this is this is a step forward, that something's happening here.
Well, boy, it comes down to just public opinion's got to get it right.
I think we're in deep, deep trouble.
Yeah, I know.
Well, as you've indicated here, the media is on the side of the state no matter what.
In fact, as Anthony Gregory says, especially now in democratic times with Obama in power, you see where the old divides get kind of washed over and now half the population loves the empire and the other half of the population loves the emperor.
And so all of that, you know, you talked about how George Bush took that anti Vietnam sentiment and turned it toward what we're going to do right by them this time or whatever.
Well, those people that didn't buy into that, they bought into Obama.
So now everybody's basically on the reservation.
Right.
And, you know, and, you know, I can't say enough about how important, you know, websites and organizations like anti war dot com are because we're consistent.
We're consistent.
We know what side we're on the side of the people and on the side of truth.
And it doesn't matter who's in office, you know, and without anti war, without people like, say, Glenn Greenwald and others who are writing about this constantly and are out there putting their necks out there on an unpopular issue.
You know, this is an issue in which students are being told if you access WikiLeaks, you might be hurting your career.
And you have people who are willing to go out there and talk on behalf of WikiLeaks and take the punches and the blows.
That's important.
And I think anti war has been right there on the forefront of all that.
Well, it's an exciting way to wrap up a decade and a very interesting way to start off a new one.
Yeah.
Well, we'll definitely be keeping track and I'll be keeping track, as I know so many of our listeners will to original dot antiwar.com/Vallejos for Kelly B.
Vallejos.
She's also a contributing editor at the American Conservative Magazine.
You always write great stuff and I greatly appreciate your time on the show, Kelly.
Thank you, Scott.
