Ukraine: Why the Pentagon and the CIA Hate Julian Assange

by Jacob G. Hornberger

As most everyone knows, the hatred that U.S. officials have for Julian Assange has no bounds. For years, they have relentlessly and obsessively done everything they can to destroy, isolate, persecute, prosecute, incarcerate, torture, and hound the guy to death. They have even contemplated assassinating him through their omnipotent, dark-side, non-reviewable power of assassination, a power that the U.S. national-security establishment wields and exercises on a regular basis without any interference by the federal judiciary or the Congress.

Why do they hate Assange so much? Because he disclosed to the American people dark-side secrets of the U.S. national-security establishment. In a national-security state form of governmental structure, that is among the gravest offenses that a person can ever commit. 

Consider, for example, a certain cable that Assange’s organization WikiLeaks revealed to the world. The cable was sent in 2009 — 13 years ago — by William J. Burns, the U.S. Ambassador to Russia. It stated in part: 

NATO enlargement, particularly to Ukraine, remains “an emotional and neuralgic” issue for Russia, but strategic policy considerations also underlie strong opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia. In Ukraine, these include fears that the issue could potentially split the country in two, leading to violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would force Russia to decide whether to intervene.  Additionally, the GOR and experts continue to claim that Ukrainian NATO membership would have a major impact on Russia’s defense industry, Russian-Ukrainian family connections, and bilateral relations generally….

….During his annual review of Russia’s foreign policy January 22-23 (ref B), Foreign Minister Lavrov stressed that Russia had to view continued eastward expansion of NATO, particularly to Ukraine and Georgia, as a potential military threat. While Russia might believe statements from the West that NATO was not directed against Russia, when one looked at recent military activities in NATO countries (establishment of U.S. forward operating locations, etc. they had to be evaluated not by stated intentions but by potential…. While Russian opposition to the first round of NATO enlargement in the mid-1990’s was strong, Russia now feels itself able to respond more forcefully to what it perceives as actions contrary to its national interests.

Now, keep in mind something important: U.S. Ambassador Burns became CIA director on March 19, 2021. Why is that important? Because Burns has been the director of the CIA for almost a year before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In other words, Burns’s cable constitutes conclusive proof that the Pentagon and the CIA knew with absolute certainty what Russia’s response would be if they threatened to have NATO absorb Ukraine. As I and others have pointed out, by threatening to absorb NATO, the Pentagon and the CIA knowingly, intentionally, and deliberately cornered Russia into making an untenable choice: (1) permit Ukraine to join NATO, which would thereby enable the Pentagon and the CIA to install military bases, missiles, tanks, troops, and other weaponry on Russia’s border, or  (2) invade Ukraine to prevent that from happening. (See my articles “Dismantle the U.S. National Security State, Now” and “The Evil and Malevolence of the Pentagon’s Brilliant Strategy in Ukraine.” Also see “It All Comes Back to NATO” by Ron Paul.”)

Do you see why they hate Assange so much? Do you see why they have gone after him so viciously? If WikiLeaks had not revealed Burns’s cable, the Pentagon and the CIA could have acted innocent and labeled anyone who outlined their strategy as a “conspiracy theorist.” The disclosure of Burn’s cable foreclosed that possibility and revealed as an absolute certainty that both the Pentagon and the CIA knew that Russia, when placed in the corner in which the Pentagon and the CIA maneuvered it, would choose to invade Ukraine rather than permit the Pentagon and the CIA to install their military bases, missiles, tanks, troops, and other weaponry on Russia’s border.

I ask you a simple question: Which is more evil: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or the Pentagon’s and CIA’s political gamesmanship that brought about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? After all, at the risk of stating the obvious, simply because Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is evil doesn’t convert the Pentagon’s and the CIA’s strategy to induce Russia to invade Ukraine into something good. Despite the evil of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Pentagon’s and the CIA’s political gamesmanship that produced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine remains evil as well and is possibly even more evil.

Notice something important about the U.S. mainstream press. They focus exclusively on the evil of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. They don’t even mention the evil of the Pentagon’s and the CIA’s political gamesmanship that brought about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Why is that? 

The Pentagon and the CIA have lots of assets within the mainstream press. Anyone who honestly thinks that the CIA abandoned its Operation Mockingbird program after it became public is suffering from extreme naïveté. Why would the CIA abandon a program in which mainstream journalists are available to spout the national-security establishment’s propaganda whenever called upon to do so?

But what about American statists, especially those who are expressing outrage over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? Why aren’t they as outraged over the Pentagon’s and the CIA’s political maneuvering as they are at Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. They too are focusing exclusively on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with no focus whatsoever on the evil of the role that the Pentagon and the CIA have played in producing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. After all, the condemnation of both events are not mutually exclusive. One can easily condemn both. See, for example, Andrew Bacevich’s excellent article, “US Can’t Absolve Itself of Responsibility for Putin’s Ukraine Invasion.”

The answer lies in the extreme refusal of American statists to criticize or condemn the U.S. national-security establishment. The Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA, which are the three principal components of the U.S. national-security establishment, are a triune god to American statists, no different from the triune god that American Christians worship on Sundays. That’s why, for example, American statists cheered when the Pentagon and the CIA were doing to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan the same thing that Russia is now doing to the people of Ukraine.

After all, for the past several years or even months there could have been massive protests by American statists against how the Pentagon and the CIA were using NATO to intentionally, knowingly, and deliberately bring about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Those protests could have conceivably pressured the Pentagon and the CIA to direct President Biden to publicly foreswear NATO’s absorption of Ukraine. If Biden had just made that simple announcement, there never would have been a Russian invasion of Ukraine, and all those dead Russian soldiers and Ukrainian people would still be alive today.

But as we all know, no such protests ever took place. Given the unswerving devotion to their political triune god, American statists could not even conceive of going down what to them would be an “unpatriotic” road — a road that entailed open opposition to their triune political god. That’s undoubtedly the big reason for the silence that characterizes American statists today toward what the Pentagon’s and the CIA’s political gamesmanship toward Russia has wrought for the people of Ukraine.

It’s worth mentioning the outcome of the Pentagon’s and the CIA’s political gamesmanship. Massive death and destruction in Ukraine. A new (and old) official enemy for the U.S. that is now garnering the ire of the entire world. A massive rallying to the Pentagon and the CIA, possibly even more so than during the Cold War or after the 9/11 attacks. Unlimited tax-funded largess flooding into the coffers of the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA and their ever-growing army of “defense” contractors. Ever-growing omnipotent power of the national-security establishment within America’s federal governmental structure. Ever more federal spending, debt, and inflation. The ever-expanding destruction of the rights and liberties of the American people. Greater possibility of all-out nuclear war between Russia and the United States.

But at least the Pentagon’s and the CIA’s deadly, vicious, and destructive gamesmanship is there for all who care to see it. Is it any wonder why they hate Julian Assange?

Source: The Future of Freedom Foundation