Julian Assange has caused a political storm. What do you make of it?

Julian Assange sought asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy and has been given asylum in what was quite extraordinary twist in his long running campaign to avoid extradition to Sweden. He is wanted for questioning over allegations he sexually assaulted two woman but fears extradition to the USA. What do you make of this rather odd case? Who is right in this case?

Julian Assange is an Australian National who gained access to a large number of confidential US government electronic communications. His informant, a serving American soldier, has been incarcerated for about three years now. The purloined material has been published under the name of Wikileaks.

Mr. Assange presents a curiously unsympathetic demeanour, so there is a consensus of agreement that he should answer to the Americans for his actions, in many of the World's official circles. However outside of the USA there appears to be little of which he could be legally charged.

Enter the Swedish Prosecutor. A pair of Swedish ladies, perhaps "no better than they ought to be" allege rape on an occasion when Mr. Assange was last in Stockholm. The gentleman admits having had consenting sexual relations. The difference of opinion seems to concern his attempt to resume that activity a couple of hours after its first, consensual, occurrence. An official complaint of Rape to the Swedish Police resulted ultimately in the issue of a European Arrest Warrant requiring the extradition of Assange from Britain to Sweden. British Courts have ordered his extradition, but Assange is now sheltered in the London Embassy of Ecuador. Evidently he is supported in his fear that the Swedes act as proxy on behalf of the American authorities, to whom he will be surrendered in due course.

This will run and run, as the Theatre Critics often say.

This article on Assange from 'The New York Times', by Michael Moore and Oliver Stone, covers most of the issues:-

http://www.socialistunity.com/the-simple-solution-to-the-julian-assange-issue/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-simple-solution-to-the-julian-assange-issue

There is ample evidence elsewhere of various States steam-rollering individuals who irritate them.

The Assange affair seems on course to become an event to rank alongside the signing of Magna Carta in importance for civil liberty.

Knowing all too little about any of the kerfuffle, my uneducated view is the Mr Assange appears to be an obnoxious, pompous and self-important little shit who deserves to live in the Ecuadorian Embassy for the rest of his natural...

I would like to know why the Swedish Authorities dont question Assange in the UK. Is there something in their Legal System that prevents it?

I am also curious to see which law trumps the other... asylum or extradition.

I am also curious to see which law trumps the other... asylum or extradition.

I guess that depends on whether Sweden wants to piss off a lone traitor and possible rapist or the United States government.

Shirina wrote:

I am also curious to see which law trumps the other... asylum or extradition.

I guess that depends on whether Sweden wants to piss off a lone traitor and possible rapist or the United States government.

Why is Assange a traitor?

Why is Assange a traitor?

Well, okay, not a traitor per se since he's Australian. But definitely an enemy of the US. You don't grab top secret documents from a foreign country and plaster them on the internet and expect nothing bad to happen to you.

Shirina wrote:

Why is Assange a traitor?

Well, okay, not a traitor per se since he's Australian. But definitely an enemy of the US. You don't grab top secret documents from a foreign country and plaster them on the internet and expect nothing bad to happen to you.

Assange did not grab top secret documents... he merely published top secret documents that were given to him by thems that grabbed them. In fact, that is the whole purpose of wikileaks... to publish secret documents. It's a publishing house.

The real enemy of the US are certain staff that can't be trusted with secret documents. People like Bradley Manning are the enemies of the US. It was Brad's disgust with the Pentagon and State Secretaries office and the way in which they engage the business of invasion and foreign affairs that caused him to steal those secret documents and tapes, then upload them to Wikileaks, so as to expose that which caused him disgust.

I note however your attitude and appreciate that it is a common attitude being disseminated by the State and the Media oligarchy. I believe that there are US Senators who are advocating Assange's assassination! And this idea that a non American can be a traitor is not the first instance I've heard it.

Quite frankly, the US has been deeply embarrassed by the Wikileaks disclosures, but rather than examine their mechanisms for protecting secrets and better still... their attitudes towards other nations... they prefer to engage an excessively emotional display of indignation whilst erecting strawman arguments to take the pressure off the truth.

And the irony in all this... More and more scrutiny is being placed upon peoples of western worlds, with a common and profoundly irrational argument being... If you've got nothing to hide, then you've got nothing to worry about. Yet this additional scrutiny has done nothing to increase our safety or liberty for that matter.... but everything to increase social control and targeted propaganda.

Sorry, TB, but this guy put our - and I do mean our - soldiers at risk. Not to mention Afghani informants. If you want to leak documents exposing government malfeasance, that's one thing. But when you start endangering our boys and girls fighting over there, I draw the line.

Shirina wrote:Sorry, TB, but this guy put our - and I do mean our - soldiers at risk. Not to mention Afghani informants. If you want to leak documents exposing government malfeasance, that's one thing. But when you start endangering our boys and girls fighting over there, I draw the line.

Call it Collateral Damage!

And where is the hard evidence that 'our' or 'US' soldiers were at risk because of Wikileaks? Just saying it was so, does not make it so. Clinton provided no evidence for those comments SHE originated at a press conference... but my oh my... those comments have become a mantra, that you now use without evidence to justify such claims.

I heard that it was the US and its people who were putting US soldiers at risk by sending them there and praising them for going there! And I've got evidence for that... the media is full of images of dead and maimed soldiers and citizens praising them for.... What? Is fighting a war in Afghanistan protecting the US way of life? Um... No!

So please... look closer to home to find out who is putting your men and women in Afghanistan at risk of death and injury.

True Blue wrote:

Shirina wrote:Sorry, TB, but this guy put our - and I do mean our - soldiers at risk. Not to mention Afghani informants. If you want to leak documents exposing government malfeasance, that's one thing. But when you start endangering our boys and girls fighting over there, I draw the line.

Call it Collateral Damage!

 

Call it what is. Call it depraved indifference to human life.  Call it selling Aussie, British, and US troops down the river for profit and fame, a depraved motivation when the costs of financial well-being and self-aggrandizement are precious human lives and souls. Call it an abomination.

Or just call it immoral.

True Blue wrote:
And where is the hard evidence that 'our' or 'US' soldiers were at risk because of Wikileaks?

 

Ask the SECDEF. Ask the CIA. Ask MI-6. Ask Aussie defenses and security officials. In other words, ask someone who knows.

True Blue wrote:
Just saying it was so, does not make it so.

 

Just saying it’s not so does not make it not so.

True Blue wrote:
Clinton provided no evidence for those comments SHE originated at a press conference…

 

You’ve provided no evidence for the comments you’ve originated on this forum.

True Blue wrote:
… but my oh my... those comments have become a mantra, that you now use without evidence to justify such claims.

 

My, oh my! Your comments have become your mantra that you now use without evidence to justify your claims.

True Blue wrote:
I heard that it was the US and its people who were putting US soldiers at risk by sending them there and praising them for going there!

 

I heard that it was the US and its people, along with the United Kingdom and its people and Australia and its people who were compelled by the events of 11 September 2001 to send troops into that hellhole in order to protect decent, human beings throughout the civilized world.

True Blue wrote:
And I've got evidence for that...

 

Present your evidence.

True Blue wrote:
… the media is full of images of dead and maimed soldiers and citizens praising them for.... What?

 

A media “full of images of dead and maimed soldiers and citizens praising them for” whatever is evidence of a media “full of images of dead and maimed soldiers and citizens praising them for” whatever and nothing else.

You’ve presented evidence of nothing else. Present your evidence.

True Blue wrote:
Is fighting a war in Afghanistan protecting the US way of life?

 

Yes.

True Blue wrote:
So please... look closer to home to find out who is putting your men and women in Afghanistan at risk of death and injury.  

 

I don’t need to look “closer to home to find out”; al qaida and the taliban, ably assisted by Julian Assange, are putting our men and women, Aussie, British, US, and others, at risk of death injury.

The assange case is a difficult one. He's certainly no traitor, pretty much wikileaks has been a good thing. But I personally cant blindly support him like some on the left and anarchist factions. He must answer these charges. He is not the messiah (some think he is) he's a very naughty boy!

The problem with the Assange case is the question of the alleged charges and the insistence of Sweden that he can only be questioned about them in Sweden, when in the past Swedish police have been sent to another European country to question a suspect in a murder case....

It is clear that the only reason for wanting him back in Sweden is so that the USA can get their hands on him......

I wonder how the publishing of historic records showing the behaviour of the US Government and it's military in the past can be said to put the lives of soldiers at risk?...

Touchy subject this. He printed stuff after the event so as astradt1 rightly says he hasn't killed or damaged anything, simply highlighted the ineptitude of certain departments in the US. The reality though is the US hasn't laid charges against him or asked for extradition for any offence as yet. The Swedes have asked for extradition regarding a rape offence (Assange conveniently never mentioned this in his rant). It isn't for us to judge what might happen, simply let him answer the charges brought against him by a country with which we have a treaty and are honour bound to extradite him to.

How touching it is to see the faith which people still have in the integrity of sovereign governments, despite clear recent evidence of dirty tricks collusion between MI5/CIA and dubious foreign security agencies to "question" suspects under a rendition program.

The Swedes have asked for extradition regarding a rape offence (Assange conveniently never mentioned this in his rant). It isn't for us to judge what might happen, simply let him answer the charges brought against him by a country with which we have a treaty and are honour bound to extradite him to..

tlttf. Sweden has asked for Assange's extradition for an alleged rape offence. No charges have been brought against him, he is merely wanted for questioning. He should indeed answer the allegations in Sweden, but there is always the risk that he could be snatched by the Americans on the way there.

In my view, the biggest issue in this saga (which you've chosen to ignore) was the crass threat by William Hague to break into the Ecuadorean Embassy. Embassies are sacrosanct, and to violate one would set a precedent which could endanger British citizens all over the world. Hague should be sacked for his stupidity (last year he announced to the world that Gaddafi was on his way to Venezuela!).

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Enjoy your flight, and please note that the use of mobile telephones is suspended until landing."

oftenwrong wrote:
"This is your Captain speaking.  Welcome aboard SAS Scandinavian Airlines, and we apologise for any inconvenience due to having turned West leaving Heathrow, as our First Officer wanted to watch the sunset.  Due to having loaded twice the normal amount of fuel delivered as Gallons instead of Litres we shall be diverting to a convenient airport on the East Coast of the USA.
Enjoy your flight, and please note that the use of mobile telephones is suspended until landing."

 

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(This is probably a poor choice of topic for someone trying to ease back into the forum after an absence, but insomnia has the better of me and I've nowt else to do.)

A few somewhat jumbled points, here, sorry, but I'm too tired for any of that 'coherence' stuff.

Most of this is, "to the best of my knowledge...", so I invite corrections, but, as I understand it, the reason that Assange hasn't been charged (while it may also be that he'll never be charged even if he returns to Sweden) is that, under Swedish law, one can't technically be charged until arrested. And obviously they can't arrest him at the moment. Presumably the procedure would be question, arrest, charge.

(When I learned that, I confess that I did wonder whether Sweden's ever tried anyone in absentia, and if so, how they managed that, given the above, but for now I've been going on the assumption that it's essentially true.)

I have also viewed Quito's moral stand, for which some have credited it, with some doubt, since they did seem to be on the verge of extraditing a Belarusian dissident, but last I hear an Ecuadorian judge had struck that down. Another minor concern -for now- set aside, then.

Wikileaks, I feel, is largely a good thing, or at least has the potential to be. I'm forever being told that nobody, soldier or otherwise, has been killed as a consequence of the leaks, and I think there's certainly a difference between aiding the enemy and exposing the criminality or immorality of the nation/its allies.

I'd hope, though, that it -or a similar operation- could survive without Mr. Assange.

What's really depressed me is the rape culture and apologist attitudes of many people I previously respected and still desperately want to like. It feels like many, in their efforts to defend Assange, are not just dismissing the particular complaints of the two women in this case, which is shaky ground to walk in itself (even if this all ends with their both being exposed as CIA operatives or whatever other conspiracy theory one may advocate), but by extension drifting generally into misogynistic territory and victim blaming/shaming.

One question I've had (and apparently I've not been putting it to the right people, because nobody can give me a straight answer) is... if you believe this is all a means to Assange's extradition to the US and eventual execution/torture/endless-detention or whatever else for his Wikileaks activities, why do you think that Stockholm's so much further up Washington's arse than London is? If the Swedes are just going to hand him over to the Yanks, why couldn't the British have done that ages ago?

Heck, it's not like we've had a problem with deporting Aussies in the past.

Have we really exhausted comment on this unique dilemma for the Authorities?

A cartoon in The Sunday Times suggested a Fire Drill at the Ecuadorian Embassy.

Assange's Christmas Message

(msn)
" Er..hello. I am so deluded that I actually believe that people want me to make this stumbling rant from this balcony...er...window to an audience of three people and a dog, but then I am just a bit mad , and furthermore..... ( remainder of drivel mercifully drowned out by traffic noise and passing shouts of " who cares, you pompous git..?")