{"id":7544,"date":"2024-06-26T14:43:35","date_gmt":"2024-06-26T14:43:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/?p=7544"},"modified":"2024-06-26T14:55:54","modified_gmt":"2024-06-26T14:55:54","slug":"julian-assange-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/?p=7544","title":{"rendered":"JULIAN ASSANGE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em>Saipan<\/em>&nbsp;is the largest island and capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, a Territory of the United States in the western Pacific<\/strong>.<strong> Saipan was liberated by the US Marines after the Battle of Saipan in July 1945, thus exposing Japan to direct attacks of the USAF.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Never in my wildest dreams could I have concatenated Saipan with the freedom of Julian Assange.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Today, after 12 years of persecution, which included 7 years of diplomatic immunity in the Ecuadorean embassy in central London and 5 years in Britian&#8217;s maximum security Belmarsh prison pending extradition to the United States, Julian Assange was declared a free man in return for a guilty plea on the island of Saipan.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Below is a snap I took of the Ecuadorean Embassy in central London when I was just a dozen yards or so from Julian during his sequestration.<\/strong> <strong>I discreetly waited for the uniformed Bobby permanently stationed outside the main entrance to walk out of view while waiting to arrest Julian should he step out into the street.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/embassy-1-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/embassy-1-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7545\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/embassy-1-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/embassy-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/embassy-1-768x513.jpg 768w, https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/embassy-1-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/embassy-1-2048x1367.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>How we have changed. For publishing the &#8220;Pentagon Papers&#8221; revealing the misinformation of the US DOD about the Vietnam War back in the 60s, Daniel Elsberg became a national hero. Free speech in the West is now just about extinct.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saipan&nbsp;is the largest island and capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, a Territory of the United States in the western Pacific. Saipan was liberated by the US Marines after the Battle of Saipan in July 1945, thus exposing Japan to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/?p=7544\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military","category-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7544"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7551,"href":"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7544\/revisions\/7551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bilyreid.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}