Why I'm Posting Bail For Julian Assange: A Letter From Michael Moore

Why I'm Posting Bail Money for Julian Assange
(A statement from Michael Moore)

Tuesday, December 14th, 2010
On Tuesday, December 14, 2010 Michael Moore sent a letter to the public titled
“Why I’m posting bail money for Julian Assange. He continues to share his
thoughts on his website today:
By Michael Moore
Dear Swedish Government:
Hi there -- or as you all say, Hallå! You know, all of us here in the U.S. love your
country. Your Volvos, your meatballs, your hard-to-put-together furniture -- we
can't get enough!
There's just one thing that bothers me….

Here’s the original letter
Friends,
Yesterday, in the Westminster Magistrates Court in London, the lawyers for WikiLeaks
co-founder Julian Assange presented to the judge a document from me stating that I have
put up $20,000 of my own money to help bail Mr. Assange out of jail.
Furthermore, I am publicly offering the assistance of my website, my servers, my domain

names and anything else I can do to keep WikiLeaks alive and thriving as it continues its
work to expose the crimes that were concocted in secret and carried out in our name and
with our tax dollars.
We were taken to war in Iraq on a lie. Hundreds of thousands are now dead. Just imagine
if the men who planned this war crime back in 2002 had had a WikiLeaks to deal with.
They might not have been able to pull it off. The only reason they thought they could get
away with it was because they had a guaranteed cloak of secrecy. That guarantee has now
been ripped from them, and I hope they are never able to operate in secret again.
So why is WikiLeaks, after performing such an important public service, under such
vicious attack? Because they have outed and embarrassed those who have covered up the
truth. The assault on them has been over the top:
**Sen. Joe Lieberman says WikiLeaks "has violated the Espionage Act."
**The New Yorker's George Packer calls Assange "super-secretive, thin-skinned, [and]
megalomaniacal."
**Sarah Palin claims he's "an anti-American operative with blood on his hands" whom
we should pursue "with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders."
**Democrat Bob Beckel (Walter Mondale's 1984 campaign manager) said about Assange
on Fox: "A dead man can't leak stuff ... there's only one way to do it: illegally shoot the
son of a bitch."
**Republican Mary Matalin says "he's a psychopath, a sociopath ... He's a terrorist."
**Rep. Peter A. King calls WikiLeaks a "terrorist organization."
And indeed they are! They exist to terrorize the liars and warmongers who have brought
ruin to our nation and to others. Perhaps the next war won't be so easy because the tables
have been turned -- and now it's Big Brother who's being watched ... by us!
WikiLeaks deserves our thanks for shining a huge spotlight on all this. But some in the
corporate-owned press have dismissed the importance of WikiLeaks ("they've released
little that's new!") or have painted them as simple anarchists ("WikiLeaks just releases
everything without any editorial control!"). WikiLeaks exists, in part, because the
mainstream media has failed to live up to its responsibility. The corporate owners have
decimated newsrooms, making it impossible for good journalists to do their job. There's
no time or money anymore for investigative journalism. Simply put, investors don't want
those stories exposed. They like their secrets kept ... as secrets.
I ask you to imagine how much different our world would be if WikiLeaks had existed 10
years ago. Take a look at this photo. That's Mr. Bush about to be handed a "secret"
document on August 6th, 2001. Its heading read: "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in
US." And on those pages it said the FBI had discovered "patterns of suspicious activity in
this country consistent with preparations for hijackings." Mr. Bush decided to ignore it
and went fishing for the next four weeks.
But if that document had been leaked, how would you or I have reacted? What would
Congress or the FAA have done? Was there not a greater chance that someone,
somewhere would have done something if all of us knew about bin Laden's impending
attack using hijacked planes?
But back then only a few people had access to that document. Because the secret was
kept, a flight school instructor in San Diego who noticed that two Saudi students took no
interest in takeoffs or landings, did nothing. Had he read about the bin Laden threat in the
paper, might he have called the FBI? (Please read this essay by former FBI Agent Coleen
Rowley, Time's 2002 co-Person of the Year, about her belief that had WikiLeaks been
around in 2001, 9/11 might have been prevented.)
Or what if the public in 2003 had been able to read "secret" memos from Dick Cheney as
he pressured the CIA to give him the "facts" he wanted in order to build his false case for
war? If a WikiLeaks had revealed at that time that there were, in fact, no weapons of
mass destruction, do you think that the war would have been launched -- or rather,
wouldn't there have been calls for Cheney's arrest?
Openness, transparency -- these are among the few weapons the citizenry has to protect
itself from the powerful and the corrupt. What if within days of August 4th, 1964 -- after
the Pentagon had made up the lie that our ship was attacked by the North Vietnamese in
the Gulf of Tonkin -- there had been a WikiLeaks to tell the American people that the
whole thing was made up? I guess 58,000 of our soldiers (and 2 million Vietnamese)
might be alive today.
Instead, secrets killed them.
For those of you who think it's wrong to support Julian Assange because of the sexual
assault allegations he's being held for, all I ask is that you not be naive about how the
government works when it decides to go after its prey. Please -- never, ever believe the
"official story." And regardless of Assange's guilt or innocence (see the strange nature of
the allegations here), this man has the right to have bail posted and to defend himself. I
have joined with filmmakers Ken Loach and John Pilger and writer Jemima Khan in
putting up the bail money -- and we hope the judge will accept this and grant his release
today.
Might WikiLeaks cause some unintended harm to diplomatic negotiations and U.S.
interests around the world? Perhaps. But that's the price you pay when you and your
government take us into a war based on a lie. Your punishment for misbehaving is that
someone has to turn on all the lights in the room so that we can see what you're up to.
You simply can't be trusted. So every cable, every email you write is now fair game.
Sorry, but you brought this upon yourself. No one can hide from the truth now. No one
can plot the next Big Lie if they know that they might be exposed.
And that is the best thing that WikiLeaks has done. WikiLeaks, God bless them, will save
lives as a result of their actions. And any of you who join me in supporting them are
committing a true act of patriotism. Period.
I stand today in absentia with Julian Assange in London and I ask the judge to grant him
his release. I am willing to guarantee his return to court with the bail money I have wired
to said court. I will not allow this injustice to continue unchallenged.
Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com
P.S. You can read the statement I filed today in the London court here.
P.P.S. If you're reading this in London, please go support Julian Assange and WikiLeaks
at a demonstration at 1 PM today, Tuesday the 14th, in front of the Westminster court.
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Why I'm Posting Bail For Julian Assange: A Letter From Michael Moore

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Why I'm Posting Bail Money for Julian Assange

(A statement from Michael Moore)

Dear Swedish Government:

There's just one thing that bothers me….

Furthermore, I am publicly offering the assistance of my website, my servers, my domain

**Rep. Peter A. King calls WikiLeaks a "terrorist organization."

Instead, secrets killed them.

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