Assange’s fate and the looming Iran conflict

Two significant news came out today, apparently two different subjects, yet they fit perfectly into the same narrative.
First of all, Julian Assange: After UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid signed on Thursday the US extradition request, today it has been announced a hearing on the issue will take place in February 2020, after the Wikileaks founder completes his sentence for bail violation. Could be that the date will be put forward if the Americans insist, but anyway it looks pretty clear the British will hand Assange to the US.
The second news story we should not ignore concerns the latest ‘attacks’ in the Gulf region, involving several ships. The US announced today the information community has proof the Iranian are to blame. The American narrative is already being contradicted by the Japanese personnel on one of the ships involved, who describe the attack as airborne, which means the explosions were not caused by Iranian mines or torpedoes.
This week's attack comes after a similar one a month ago and, as I was saying at the time, we are one false flag away from a war with Iran.
How does Assange figure into this? His fate is meant to be a warning to all those who might be tempted to release ‘confidential’ military information. With Julian Assange behind bars, we speak of press freedom being under attack - and rightly so - but an investigative reporter or publisher is only as good as his sources are. Wikileaks wouldn’t exist without people like Chelsea Manning or whatever other sources leaked documents. By making an example out of Assange and Manning, of course, American authorities are sending out a warning to any disgruntled people in the military who might feel like sharing classified information. If a conflict in the Gulf is currently being manufactured, there are people who might know nasty things, things the US wouldn’t want to get public.

The Iraq war was exposed for what it really was by people who knew too much. And even before Wikileaks, let us not forget the Abu Ghraib scandal - the pictures proving the horrible abuse perpetrated against Iraqi detainees in Baghdad by a bunch of perverted American soldiers shocked the whole word. All the bloody rhetoric about freedom and bringing democracy to Iraq flew out the window when the world saw naked prisoners abused by laughing American soldiers. The pictures were first published by journalist Seymour Hersh in 2004, but the information came from a leaked military file regarding the abuse at Abu Ghraib prepared by American major general Antonio Taguba. The general was tasked with preparing a confidential report, but apparently what he discovered there was so shocking he decided to go public with the file. Taguba was forced into early retirement and, to my mind, he escaped some sort of prosecution only because the scandal was too big.
Let’s imagine for one second that the United States do decide to drop some democracy over Iran - there will be other prisoners to abuse, other innocent civilians to bomb, other reporters to be blown up in their vehicles. Other misuse of funds, let’s not forget about that.
With Assange slated to spend the rest of his life behind bars, the message is loud and clear: “Keep it shut!”

P.S. Do you guys know of the 2014 movie ‘Boys of Abu Ghraib’ which aimed to exonerate the poor US soldiers of any blame? I just read about it and I’m sick to the stomach.