In a patently illegal use of armed force, United States and British bombs are falling on the people of Afghanistan. There are already reports of thou… - Marjorie Cohn

Two days before the High Court ruling,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared at the so-called Summit for Democracy, “Media freedom plays an indispensable role in informing the public, holding governments accountable, and telling stories that otherwise would not be told. The U.S. will continue to stand up for the brave and necessary work of journalists around the world.”
If Assange is tried, convicted and imprisoned for doing what journalists routinely do, it will send a chilling message to journalists that they publish material critical of the U.S. government at their peril.
But by vigorously pursuing Assange’s extradition, the U.S. is doing precisely the opposite. The prosecution of Assange is the first time a journalist has been indicted under the Espionage Act for publishing truthful information.

The ACLU represents Khaled El Masri, Suleiman Salim and Mohamed Ben Soud, who described the torture they suffered in Afghanistan between 2003 and 2008. “This decision vindicates the rule of law and gives hope to the thousands of victims seeking accountability when domestic courts and authorities have failed them,” the ACLU’s Dakwar said...
The impunity that U.S. officials have enjoyed for their international crimes may finally be coming to an end... Responding to Pompeo’s threats... “No one except the world’s most brutal regimes win when the United States tries to impugn and sabotage international institutions established to hold human rights abusers accountable... Countries must fully cooperate with this investigation and not submit to any authoritarian tactics by the Trump administration to sabotage it,” Jamil Dakwar, director of the ACLU’s Human Rights Project, said.

Jan Ziegler, Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, warned on October 15, that "The bombing has to stop right now. There is a humanitarian emergency." Relief agencies left Afghanistan in the wake of the bombing. The arrival of winter is imminent, when up to 7.5 million Afghans internally displaced by the bombing will be beyond the reach of humanitarian aid. Routing chief suspect Osama bin Laden from his cave with bombs is like finding a needle in a haystack, while mass starvation is inevitable.