‘backed by mountains of bodies’

is what I read initially…

This is a case brought by 4 US citizens against the CIA. They are attorneys Margaret Ratner Kunstler and Deborah Hrbek, and journalists John Goetz and Charles Glass. They all visited Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy in the relevant time period ~2017 and claim their 4th amendment rights have been violated. I can’t wait to see this trial unfold! The evidence that will come out of this could well mean the end of the DOJ’s pursuit of Assange.

This is a case brought by 4 US citizens against the CIA. They are attorneys Margaret Ratner Kunstler and Deborah Hrbek, and journalists John Goetz and Charles Glass. They all visited Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy in the relevant time period ~2017 and claim their 4th amendment rights have been violated. I can’t wait to see this trial unfold! The evidence that will come out of this could well mean the end of the DOJ’s pursuit of Assange.

The controversial Gessen quote is featured in Nachdenkseiten -> https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=108755

Masha Gessen schreibt [transl. writes]:

"For the last seventeen years, Gaza has been a hyperdensely populated, impoverished, walled-in compound where only a small fraction of the population had the right to leave for even a short amount of time – in other words, a ghetto. Not like the Jewish ghetto in Venice or an inner-city ghetto in America, but like a Jewish ghetto in an Eastern European country occupied by Nazi Germany. In the two months since Hamas attacked Israel, all Gazans have suffered from the barely interrupted onslaught of Israeli forces. Thousands have died. On average, a child is killed in Gaza every ten minutes. Israeli bombs have struck hospitals, maternity wards, and ambulances. Eight out of ten Gazans are now homeless, moving from one place to another, never able to get to safety.

The term ‚open-air prison‘ seems to have been coined in 2010 by David Cameron, the British Foreign Secretary who was then Prime Minister. Many human rights organizations that document conditions in Gaza have adopted the description. But as in the Jewish ghettoes of occupied Europe, there are no prison guards – Gaza is policed not by the occupiers but by a local force. Presumably, the more fitting term ‚ghetto’ would have drawn fire for comparing the predicament of besieged Gazans to that of ghettoized Jews. It also would have given us the language to describe what is happening in Gaza now. The ghetto is being liquidated.”

iirc there was barely any opium production in Afghanistan pre-2001 under Taliban rule. It was in the following 20 years that the industry boomed and a lot of those government officials you refer to and their relatives got extremely rich from that, including President Karzai’s own little brother. The US put those people in power and propped them up for over 2 decades. It’s pretty clear the US decision-makers tried to eradicate poppy just as little as they tried to create peace in the region (not at all).

The sticks are used to destroy the fields, not beat people

That was my point exactly.

But invoking the spectre of “Sharia law” is just as vague as referring to “US law”.

May I suggest you read the article before commenting

Armed with little more than sticks, teams of counter-narcotics brigades travel the country, cutting down Afghanistan’s poppy fields.

Speaking to Sky News Australia, Assange’s brother Shipton said the news showed the US was seeking to end it’s “extremely controversial” prosecution.

“This indication from the Ambassador Caroline Kennedy shows that the US administration is looking for an off-ramp,” Mr Shipton said.

"They’ve been pursuing Julian for the past 13 years for publishing evidence of corruption, for publishing evidence of war crimes and they’re now deciding that there is a solution available.

“This is a sign that they don’t want this playing out in American courts, particularly during an election cycle, so the US administration is really looking for an off-ramp here for what is an extremely, extremely controversial press freedom prosecution.”

Asked what the outcome of a potential deal could be, Mr Shipton suggested he would expect Assange to be freed completely upon his return to Australia, saying he had already “paid” a significant price for his actions.

“Julian has been in prison for four year, he been detained one way or another for 13 years,” he said.

“This is the price that he has paid, this is the price that his family has paid as well.”