TREACHERY

And then, just when it seemed like there would be a solution, or absolution, he was stranded in a backyard full of glinting leaves, kissed by the divine.

Visiting a surveillance expert in the Blue Mountains, he wanted to pour out his guts about the nightmare winter that had just unfolded, the curse of his pursuers, the terrible abuses of authority he had witnessed and experienced, the tormented tunnel difficulties and strange inspirations which had gone into the making of the last book.

Instead the warmth of spring surrounded them, and he felt, despite a peculiar headache, if not absolved, relieved. The world was beautiful after all.

"I didn't realise how frazzled I was," he said.

But there was no resolution, because they were being watched, even here, and their conversation remained on a level keel.

"TREACHERY", a sign swung through his head after he had left, pulling up on one of the narrow mountain streets which crisscrossed the area.

But whether the treachery was directed at him, or at others, he did not know. There were grander plots afoot. The deliberate government targeting of a journalist of 30-years standing such as himself and the many breaches of public service protocol and legislation thus involved had handed the perfect ammunition to a new breed of operative, smarter, by far, less bound by military procedures, far, far faster on their feet. And it could only be for the good, that the old dinosaurs who infested the security agencies be swept aside, and a cleverer, better educated, better connected and more empathic generation took over. And cast the dinosaurs into the pit where they belonged, their bones to be discovered, if at all, many thousands of years into the future. When this strange stage in the evolution of the species was nothing but a curiosity in an arcane academic discipline.

And so he swung down the highway to a different place, a large stone house anchored on the edge of a deep mountain ravine, where at dusk he watched the descendants of thousands of generations of birds, Bronze Pigeons with their striking colouring, Black, white and grey Wonga pigeons, like fat little hens, pecking at the edge of the forest, Rosellas, Cockatoos, and he thought for an instant the world was safe; or at least safe for one more day.

The authorities had tried to kill him, and he was still alive.

"Why haven't these people charged with attempted murder?" he demanded to know of the microphone in the car.

There was no answer. There never would be.

But the invisible beasts, the voices cast abroad, were noticeably more kind than the last time he had been there, in the midst of that horrific winter. And he knew, all too well, some things were better left unsaid.

THE BIGGER STORY:

Displaced families Mosul

https://www.rt.com/news/365299-assange-pilger-saudi-clinton/

In the second excerpt from the John Pilger Special, to be exclusively broadcast by RT on Saturday, courtesy of Dartmouth Films, Julian Assange accuses Hillary Clinton of misleading Americans about the true scope of Islamic State’s support from Washington’s Middle East allies.

In a 2014 email made public by Assange’s WikiLeaks last month, Hillary Clinton, who had served as secretary of state until the year before, urges John Podesta, then an advisor to Barack Obama, to “bring pressure” on Qatar and Saudi Arabia, “which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL [Islamic State, IS, ISIS] and other radical Sunni groups.”
“I think this is the most significant email in the whole collection,” Assange, whose whistleblowing site released three tranches of Clinton-related emails over the past year, told Pilger in an exclusive interview, courtesy of Dartmouth Films.

“All serious analysts know, and even the US government has agreed, that some Saudi figures have been supporting ISIS and funding ISIS, but the dodge has always been that it is some “rogue” princes using their oil money to do whatever they like, but actually the government disapproves. But that email says that it is the government of Saudi Arabia, and the government of Qatar that have been funding ISIS.”

Assange and Pilger, who sat down for their 25-minute interview at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where the whistleblower has been a refugee since 2012, then talk about the conflict of interest between Clinton’s official post, which held throughout Obama’s first term, her husband’s nonprofit, and the Middle East officials, whose stated desire to fight terrorism may not have been sincere.

John Pilger: The Saudis, the Qataris, the Moroccans, the Bahrainis, particularly the first two, are giving all this money to the Clinton Foundation, while Hillary Clinton is secretary of state, and the State Department is approving massive arms sales, particularly Saudi Arabia.

Julian Assange: Under Hillary Clinton – and the Clinton emails reveal a significant discussion of it – the biggest-ever arms deal in the world was made with Saudi Arabia: more than $80 billion. During her tenure, the total arms exports from the US doubled in dollar value.

JP: Of course, the consequence of that is that this notorious jihadist group, called ISIL or ISIS, is created largely with money from people who are giving money to the Clinton Foundation?

JA: Yes.

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