 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today, once again, we're very fortunate to be joined by Roger Waters. Roger Waters recently celebrated his birthday, which is terrific. But we're talking the day after his birthday, the 7th of September, when our friend Julian Assange is facing an extradition trial in London. Roger, welcome to NewsClick. Thank you. It's good to see you. Julian Assange has entered a process which might last three or four weeks of an extradition trial. He's being extradited perhaps to the United States, where he faces a large number of counts, you know, by the Treason Act of the United States government. You have, of course, been very public against the arrest of Julian Assange. Could you just share some of your feelings as we enter this long period of Julian in prison and now facing extradition? Yeah, the reason that I'm pausing is because my brain is going, why is this happening? How can it possibly be true that this is happening? I feel like not Alice, maybe Alice, who's trying to figure things out at the bottom of the rabbit hole. Certainly, I'm in that kind of Corolean place where nothing makes any sense at all. We're living at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. And where it's quite clear to everybody with an IQ above room temperature that Julian Assange is a great journalist and be entirely innocent of any crime, any crime at all. And yeah, they've had him locked up for a year and a half and they're going to kill him. They are determined, so they're going to proceed with this kangaroo court in London. So the whole of the population of England, of which I count myself one, even though I live in the United States now, I am still an Englishman somewhere hidden inside me is an Englishman. We're all going to stand, not we, not me, not you, not a lot of our friends from all over the world. We're not standing by, we're complaining. But the great unwashed are going to stand by and let it happen. They're not going to make a fuss. They're not raising a thing. They're letting the buffoon job. I know we said we weren't going to talk about politics and we're not. Johnson shouldn't be his name shouldn't be in any conversation that has anything to do with politics but sadly, our politics are entirely engaged in the reporting of the boons, the trumps and Johnson's and blah blah blah of this world. And we have entirely lost touch with thought, reflection, considered studied views of things because if we hadn't, Julian Assange would not be in Belmarsh dying. I'm so, you know, and people, I read a piece earlier today when I was fleshing through bits of somebody saying he's the contemporary equivalent of the head on a pike. As a warning to others. Well, in a piece I wrote a year or so ago I said he Julian Assange was like the magpie, hung in the hedge is a warning. Don't steal the pheasant sakes. In this case, obviously the pheasant sakes is the truth to which we are all air and which we should all in any reasonable decent society have access to, but it's inconvenient for the powers that be that any of us have access to any of it. They want it all catchy. So I won't ramble on on on on because there are more interesting things to talk about. No, I mean, being angry about this I think is the starting point. But let's go back. When did you first encounter Julian Assange and perhaps his work. What drew you to, in other words, the story of Julian Assange. Well, if this may be the truth, the collateral murder images are probably because that was through Chelsea Manning. That was the sort of the first time really that something so black and white, but also gripping uncontestable. Actually, that's not true. Abergrave came before the collateral murder videos. Abergrave was the same thing. It was showing that the United States Empire was actually the third Reich personified. Those still photographs that came out of Abergrave were kind of like the they were like the prequel to to the collateral murder video when it came out. But when the video when the video came out like there it was suddenly right in front of her. And that was in 2007 was it or no 2007 was the incident and the images didn't come out till 2010. Well, they came out just in time for me to put them in the war show, which I started touring in October 2010 in Toronto and Canada. And I finished on September the 13th in the Stade de France in Paris three years later. So for three years I was showing the collateral murder video during a song of mine called Run Like Hell every single night that we were on stage. Could you quickly just very quickly describe the video because I mean I think this is compulsory viewing for everybody, but it would be a good idea to describe it a little and how you used it in the show. Well, it's a black and white video and it is shot from Apache two different I believe Apache attack helicopters armed with Hellfire missiles and 30 caliber, I think 30 caliber machine guns, and the audio is the young I assume young American airman manning these craft who have been reduced by the servitude to the military and to the Pentagon and to the White House and whatever to blood thirsty automatons with no empathy or feeling for other human beings. That is one of the really important things about it. So you see them and you hear them talking to each other and they're desperate to be given permission to kill people on the ground in order to get that permission they have to pretend that the people on the ground are a danger to them in their Apache helicopters. They're just flying around on to the fucking teeth. Two of the men on the ground are Reuters camera man. Said and forgotten the other guy's name. Namir and Said. Yeah. So, Lamia and say, so they're carrying cameras or one of them is and whatever. And then maybe they may be when you look very carefully, there is there might you might see somebody carrying an AK 4750 yards down the street or something somebody has an arm definitely a what but on on the grounds of this flimsy notion that these people might be dangerous in a certain way. They eventually get the water order like I'm all up. So they kill everybody inside. They kill maybe 13 people and they don't just kill them. They destroy them. There's very little left of them. And then one guy is wounded and crawls up behind a wall and they follow that desperate to kill him and they thought he's he's he's been hit by at least two 30 millimeter 30 millimeters is a thing like that. He's obviously dying any and they finally get shot. So they murder him. Then some good Samaritan comes up in a 10s 500 weight van to help them to help this guy. So in case he's not completely dead. So they open fire on the van. They happen to be two kids in the van who are both injured in the attack and the driver is killed. I believe but not. But so here is a graphic absolute graphic. This is like me lie captured on film and brought into your living room so that you can't say I don't believe it or that's unlikely. Oh it's Seymour Hirsch. What does he know about anything. Well he knows a lot about a lot because he's he's another dedicated journalist who tries to tell the truth about them. So there it was suddenly irrefutable evidence of a heinous and hideous war crime. And what have they done. What do they do. They crucified Chelsea Manning. And she's still being crucified and they'll go on cruising by a crucifying her for the rest of her life. It didn't go without notice that the appalling judge in her recent hearing when she was finally let out of prison that are out of prison but said you still have to pay the $260,000 fine. That's $260 days of $1,000 a day that you incurred by refusing to give evidence to a grand jury illegal grand jury set up to crucify Julian Assange who if you like was was her comrade in the. It's the exposing of a war crime. It's not really though it's the reporting of a war crime. That is his job as a journalist and her job as a human being, even though at the time she was in the service of the American armed forces. But luckily for the rest of us, Chelsea Manning's heart was big enough that it could not contain the awful things that she knew about the way the American Empire was treating her fellow humans beings in the Middle East. She had to speak up at whatever cost and the cost has been enormous. And so she's a great heroine of mine. I actually, I almost feel like quoting a letter that I wrote to Chelsea Manning quite recently after that court case, because I was going to take care of her. I wanted to take care of her phone and I didn't have to. Because people just went bang bang bang bang bang $10 at a time $20 at a time suddenly she'd got the 250 grand, because thank goodness, there are enough of us out there that we're going to look after Chelsea Manning because, you know, we need is our absolute duty and obligation. So, I'm rambling again. It's impossible to ramble on this story. I mean, what you said is interesting, which is that you then showed the collateral murder video in your show for three years. This means that you did almost exactly what Julian Assange did. In other words, received the video from Chelsea Manning. He published it on the WikiLeaks site. He's never denied that. And you showed it, you know, on your show. The New York Times ran stories about it. The Guardian ran stories about it. There's nothing illegal about using material once it's in the public domain, but they are accusing Assange of something for which they have no evidence. I mean, if it was merely publishing, Roger Waters should also be sitting in Belmarsh prison. I've made that point publicly as well. I've gone, come on, you don't have to extradite me. I'm in the United States. You can just come around and knock on the door. You know, and I'm laughing now, but they could they could do exactly that. But they'd have to arrest hundreds of thousands of people, maybe a million people in the United States for sharing this information, for propagating it, for saying, look at this. What's what's horrific about it, though, is that how much I show it in my show or how much this case is happening. The ruling class, the powers that be the oligarchs, whoever it is, we're not suggesting a sort of Mason like conspiracy that sit in an upstairs room at Harvard or Yale or somewhere and decide that. But it's it's a looser. It's a looser organization and that but nevertheless, it is supremely well organized and crafted, the ones who decide how the world is going to be organized to write the laws and impose them somehow managed to be entirely disinterested in this because it doesn't fit their scenario. And it doesn't fit their view, for instance, of what the United States is. So the fact that the United States from the commander in chief to the last man on the street who doesn't stand up and say no about the about the the imprisonment of Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange and all the others who've been wrongly accused and and and imprisoned. They just gains say it. They say, No, it's not a war crime. No. Well, it is. No, it's not. Yeah, it's like Monty Python. It's like the sketch about the guy going in for paying five pounds to have an argument. You know, remember the sketch? And he goes to the and then and the guy says something. And he says, That's not an argument. You're just gain saying everything. I say, No, I'm not. You just did it again. I paid you five pounds to have an argument. And you're just saying, No, it's not. That is not arguing. That's not a conversation. That's what they do. You say to them, Julian Assange is innocent, set and free tomorrow. I said that to Boris Johnson on February the 22nd, Saturday, February the 22nd, this year. And I said he's he's he's innocent. Of course he didn't. They don't even reply. But if he did, he would fluff up his stupid blonde hair and go, No, he's not. And I go, Hang on. Look at the evidence. I don't have to. He's not we've decided. Hang on. Sorry. I've been told that by Washington. And if you they're very, very powerful, and we have to do as we're told, but we're in English, you big prick, small prick, whatever you are a prick. Oh, my goodness, they went back in the 60s or whenever it was or 70s to Eaton College, they went and they went who's the stupidest boy in four C. Oh, Johnson is, you know, he's he's as thick as two short black. Good. We're going to groom him to be Prime Minister in the early 2000s. Bloody good idea. That's how they do it. That's how they do it. But then they also create a judicial system where the evidence is secret. I mean, this is extraordinary that you have a judicial system which pretends to be based on one side of the Atlantic on the American Constitution. On the other side of the Atlantic on, well, Magna Carta. habeas corpus habeas corpus. Nine of the Magna Carta habeas corpus. Right. But here. 1293. Sorry. The question of habeas corpus has not even been raised at all because well, how can there be a trial when the evidence is sealed? And this is what people are facing today. I mean, Julian Assange is facing charges which are so vague. I mean, what are computer related offenses? You know, I feel like all of us have have have done computer related offenses at some time or the other. You know, it's so vague. Said you speak for yourself. Well, I mean, what is one. Yeah, go ahead. No, you're right. Of course, you're absolutely right. But the thing is a complete charade. That is what this is my exasperation is that you cannot have the conversation because you can have it till you're blue in the face. Julian's partner, Sarah Norris is it and his father and his brother and his, you know, this Icelandic guy who runs WikiLeaks now. We marched down Whitehall with all these good people. But we could march up and down Whitehall till we were blue in the face. And they would still say they would they try and brush us off as if we're insects, you know, that are irritating their skin. Our voices are so ill heard. And the sad thing is that now that they've discovered that all was right. And if you give enough power to the Ministry of Truth, and if you exercise your right to own all the newspapers and to deliver your propaganda and all the television stations and everything because you're wealthy because you're the ruling class. So you can buy all ways of disseminating information. Then you can provide propaganda that is the to which that is almost no resistant. You have no idea, PJ, how many people I meet who are friends of mine who are known for 25, 30, 40, 50 years who come out of me with things. And I go, whoa, what are you talking about? I had a great friend. I won't mention his name. I spoke to him on the phone two days ago because I wouldn't want to embarrass me because he was saying, I'm really worried. I may have to lead you. It's so frightening. Trump this and Trump that and the other and blah, blah, blah. And then he went, you know, if you think about it and you think that the Russians hacking the bar and meddling in the in the 2016 election got this guy, you know, and he's in bed with the man. I went, whoa, I nearly said his name there, but whoa, eggs. Shut up. Don't tell me that you bought the Russia gate nonsense. Are you insane? What on earth makes you think any of that is relevant in any way? And have you not noticed the DNC National Convention that nobody mentions Russia gate, not a single word because they all know it's complete. Bullshit. It was just a way of wasting time so that nobody who has questions to ask about the judicial system about Asajj about Chelsea about the whole crazed way that the deck is loaded so that no truth is allowed to escape at any point. And you, my friend, have bought into it by listening to Rachel Maddow on MSNBC banging on about Russia gate. That's just her way of saying, you know, Hillary was right to take money from Wall Street. And she, and then what's wrong with being a born in the game of the real, the real people are the people who have all the money who buy everything. And so don't, you know, this is the overtome. He said what the overton window. Nobody knows what I'm talking about. It's a bit like nobody when I say I talk about the Patriot Act to American citizens. And I talk about amendments to it. 1021 and 1022. What are you talking about? And I said, well, you can you anybody if they if Donald Trump thinks that you might be helping a terrorist organization, you can be arrested and locked up forever. No phone call, no lawyer, no nothing. Just because he thinks you might be. And they go, what? And I go, you see, they don't even know that 1021 and 1022 are on the statute books and are the law of the land. Nobody gives you. And that's bizarre beyond all belief. They don't care that they're completely enslaved. And people have various theories about that. My theory is that the theory, this is the theory that's right is they're so close to being homeless. That they're clutching desperately at straws and the straw that they grip to most often is it's the blacks. It's the Muslims. It's the Chinese is that's the easiest propaganda to sell them. Oh, thank God, I found a straw. I don't need to know the truth. I don't need the collateral murder videos. I don't need a sarge. I don't need B.J. Prashad. I don't need the Tri-Constantial Institute. I don't need Roger Woods. I don't need anybody to try and help me out of this bog that I'm drowning in. I'm fine. It's them. Trump is right. You know, and unfortunately somehow that gives them comfort, even though the next week they do get thrown out on the street. They are homeless. They are one of the 25% of the homeless or veterans with no arms and legs who get no help from the VA and the this and that and the other who kill themselves, you know, faster than any of us can possibly imagine. Because life carrying the burden of guilt is so desperate and they're not getting help. They're not getting the help that they would need from any society that gave a shit about, oh, we love our boys, our heroes from the day they say that. But the people of this country don't give a shit about them because if they did, they would force the government. They would force the rich people to look after them, say, welcome home, brother. Oh, Jesus, you're up here. What can we do for you? We need to organize. We need meetings. We need that. And you need money. We need to support your financial. You can't be homeless. You can't be homeless on the street. You're damaged. But the attitude is, you know, you're coming for them and we don't need you anymore. So screw you. No, this is actually the perfect place because on the ground that day in 2007 2007 army specialist Ethan McCord looked into that van that you talked about and saw the two children there, and he was devastated. And he has been speaking out about that incident right through. You know, when I think of Julian Assange, Roger, I also think of army specialist Ethan McCord. These are people who couldn't live anymore. They just can't live with what we have to live with. And so they tell the truth. You know, this is the end of day one of the Julian Assange trial. We're going to follow, keep close track of the trial as it unfolds. But we'll also keep in mind people like of course army Sergeant Ethan McCord, Namir, Said and others who died that day, and all the millions who've died in wars, which Chelsea Manning of course revealed the truth about. Roger Waters, thanks for joining us. We'll come back to you to talk again about Julian Assange.