Amanda Knox and the State Department

[Loss Leader]

What should she do? Encourage people to trust corrupt incompetent Italian thugs?

Exactly where is Italy on your list of corrupt, incompetent thug nations?

 

[Spindrift]

Cantwell was Knox's senator, and therefore was motivated to establish the facts. When did a senator advocate so strongly for a guilty party? Connect the dots. Knox is innocent, it was obvious quickly to some, and they plied Cantwell with the facts. What should she do? Encourage people to trust corrupt incompetent Italian thugs. No. Advocate for her citizen, and directly to state department. My opinion of Clinton has plummeted since realising she abandoned the sisterhood for her petty objectives in requisitioning Italian troops.

The sisterhood of what?

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that being a senator de facto makes one virtuous. Sorry that's not the case. Senators like all humans can make mistakes. Connect the dots? If you strew out enough dots, one can draw any picture one desires.

 

[Loss Leader]

The sisterhood of what?

Apparently, because the Secretary of State possessed ovaries, she was supposed to fight for the freedom of a college student with ovaries. The whole idea that the Secretary of State is supposed to, you know, manage US relations with all foreign nations - enemy and ally - is just something they put in the brochure.

Case in point: Our Attorney General is a black woman and now Halle Berry is getting her own stand-alone Storm movie. Or something.

 

[Desert Fox]

Cantwell was Knox's senator, and therefore was motivated to establish the facts. When did a senator advocate so strongly for a guilty party? Connect the dots. Knox is innocent, it was obvious quickly to some, and they plied Cantwell with the facts. What should she do? Encourage people to trust corrupt incompetent Italian thugs. No. Advocate for her citizen, and directly to state department. My opinion of Clinton has plummeted since realising she abandoned the sisterhood for her petty objectives in requisitioning Italian troops.

The sisterhood of what?

You seem to be under the mistaken impression that being a senator de facto makes one virtuous. Sorry that's not the case. Senators like all humans can make mistakes. Connect the dots? If you strew out enough dots, one can draw any picture one desires.

Of course senators make mistakes. . . .Plenty on the conservative side believe that global warming is false.

I don't think that really matter because there is basically no evidence of guilt.

In Samson's defense though, we know that there are a lot machinations going on behind the scenes in regard to politics. I suspect there may have very well been some unofficial pressure behind the scenes involved.

 

[shuttlt]

The only thing I've seen from this Senator is her letter to the Italian Ambassador where she tells him about what she's read in the newspapers about the case. It didn't read to me like the letter of somebody with more than a passing knowledge of the case.

As to whether there is any evidence of Amanda's guilt... let's not dive into that. For myself it's enough to know that some people were convinced one way by the evidence, some another. I have a hard time believing there is "no evidence of guilt".

 

[Samson]

Exactly where is Italy on your list of corrupt, incompetent thug nations?

69 Brazil 43 42 43
69 Bulgaria 43 41 41
69 Greece 43 40 36
69 Italy 43 43 42
69 Romania 43 43 44
69 Senegal 43 41 36
69 Swaziland 43 39 37
76 Montenegro 42 44 41

https://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/results

 

[Samson]

The only thing I've seen from this Senator is her letter to the Italian Ambassador where she tells him about what she's read in the newspapers about the case. It didn't read to me like the letter of somebody with more than a passing knowledge of the case.

As to whether there is any evidence of Amanda's guilt... let's not dive into that. For myself it's enough to know that some people were convinced one way by the evidence, some another. I have a hard time believing there is "no evidence of guilt".

There is no evidence of guilt. That is the whole point of the debacle. What Maria Cantwell could convey to the state department is that not one item of evidence that was used to initially imprison Knox (and Sollecito) made it to trial. They were held without any legal advice for 3 days, and refused bail with evidence that was 100% false. This was on record within two weeks.
Of course 2 years later they were convicted with a completely different set of false evidence. Cantwell was interested enough to establish these undisputed facts. Of course she tried to pressure Clinton, but as the transcript shows Clinton did not want to have any uncomfortable exchange with the Italians at the time the convictions were entered.

 

[Desert Fox]

The only thing I've seen from this Senator is her letter to the Italian Ambassador where she tells him about what she's read in the newspapers about the case. It didn't read to me like the letter of somebody with more than a passing knowledge of the case.

As to whether there is any evidence of Amanda's guilt... let's not dive into that. For myself it's enough to know that some people were convinced one way by the evidence, some another. I have a hard time believing there is "no evidence of guilt".

There are people who are convinced by the evidence for homeopathy as well. Effectively you are making something akin to an argument from popularity.

 

[Loss Leader]

69 Brazil 43 42 43
69 Bulgaria 43 41 41
69 Greece 43 40 36
69 Italy 43 43 42
69 Romania 43 43 44
69 Senegal 43 41 36
69 Swaziland 43 39 37
76 Montenegro 42 44 41

https://www.transparency.org/cpi2014/results

So, less corrupt than a hundred and six other countries ... on a scale that places the US seventeenth.

And the same organization's Global Corruption Barometer put's Italy 17th and the US 21st.

And none of this provides any of the answers that you promised relating to my post. There's no evidence of US intervention.

 

[Samson]

So, less corrupt than a hundred and six other countries ... on a scale that places the US seventeenth.

And the same organization's Global Corruption Barometer put's Italy 17th and the US 21st.

And none of this provides any of the answers that you promised relating to my post. There's no evidence of US intervention.

There were interesting points in your post, I mean to respond with a little research.
There is a gulf between a situation which is degrees of punishment, shades of meaning, eg Snowden, and that Aussie up for the Swedish rape and so on.
We are dealing with a particular data set, and the question of how members are treated by their own country.
People who are unequivocally factually innocent and in danger of losing their liberty.
My contention is the State Department regarded it as a risk too great to allow Italy to shoot their foot, and create a festering problem. It would never be resolved while Knox was a prisoner in her own country because of Italian malfeasance. It would be much easier to educate forcefully, rather than instruct an acquittal. But is there a big difference?

 

[Spindrift]

There were interesting points in your post, I mean to respond with a little research.
There is a gulf between a situation which is degrees of punishment, shades of meaning, eg Snowden, and that Aussie up for the Swedish rape and so on.
We are dealing with a particular data set, and the question of how members are treated by their own country.
People who are unequivocally factually innocent and in danger of losing their liberty.
My contention is the State Department regarded it as a risk too great to allow Italy to shoot their foot, and create a festering problem. It would never be resolved while Knox was a prisoner in her own country because of Italian malfeasance. It would be much easier to educate forcefully, rather than instruct an acquittal. But is there a big difference?

Contentions but no evidence.

 

[Samson]

Contentions but no evidence.

I have no direct evidence. I still hope someone knows something factual.
But the alternate view is the state department, while knowing Knox is innocent, because investigators and lawyers have told them this is so, said nothing, and waited to see what would happen.
Well everyone on the Knox thread bar one thought another trial or confirmation of the guilty verdict was coming down the pike.
Yet this did not happen. Interestingly Italian Frank Sfarzo also gave 80% chance of acquittal, and in fairness he would be unlikely to be thinking American interference. But worth asking him the question of course.

 

[Spindrift]

I have no direct evidence. I still hope someone knows something factual.

What if the facts show the US State Department had nothing to do with it?

But the alternate view is the state department, while knowing Knox is innocent, because investigators and lawyers have told them this is so, said nothing, and waited to see what would happen.

You have evidence that the state department knew what you claim it knew?

Well everyone on the Knox thread bar one thought another trial or confirmation of the guilty verdict was coming down the pike.

The Knox thread is not that many people and evidence of nothing.

Yet this did not happen. Interestingly Italian Frank Sfarzo also gave 80% chance of acquittal, and in fairness he would be unlikely to be thinking American interference. But worth asking him the question of course.

And yet you don't ask those questions?

 

[Loss Leader]

My contention is the State Department regarded it as a risk too great to allow Italy to shoot their foot, and create a festering problem.

Your notion that the Amanda Knox situation created any sort of problem for anyone besides Amanda Knox is interestingly free of evidence. Surely, there must have been some backlash - a drop in tourism, a refusal to import products. I'd even accept a drop in the number of foreign exchange students going to Perugia. But none of that happened. Why? Because nobody cared about Amanda Knox.

But the alternate view is the state department, while knowing Knox is innocent, because investigators and lawyers have told them this is so, said nothing, and waited to see what would happen.

I'm a lawyer, Samson. I've been a lawyer for 19 years. I am now going to tell you that I have investigated the situation and it is a fact that there is an elephant in my living room.

Do you now know that there's an elephant in my living room?

 

[Samson]

Your notion that the Amanda Knox situation created any sort of problem for anyone besides Amanda Knox is interestingly free of evidence. Surely, there must have been some backlash - a drop in tourism, a refusal to import products. I'd even accept a drop in the number of foreign exchange students going to Perugia. But none of that happened. Why? Because nobody cared about Amanda Knox.

This is untrue. On the available evidence, it took American investigators to establish the facts, not Italian investigators. They say they did this because they cared. More heavyweights assembled than in any case in history, I am confident of that statement. Refute it with a finer example by all means. Without these people it appears she stood no chance after the annulment of Hellmann. They were undoubtedly lining up to fight extradition if the ISC screwed up again. Because they cared about her and her family. I know what you mean by your statement, but having a senator on your side can only happen when something big is in play.

I'm a lawyer, Samson. I've been a lawyer for 19 years. I am now going to tell you that I have investigated the situation and it is a fact that there is an elephant in my living room.

Do you now know that there's an elephant in my living room?

I have been studying this paragraph, and I'm not sure how it relates. I know the general meaning. I might suggest the state department may have been the elephant in the room when the hapless ISC judges were discussing the case they were tossed.

 

[BazBear]

Samson, you seem to be committing the mistake we see made by many conspiracy theorists; that is, starting with a conclusion based on little to no credible evidence, and then working backwards trying find things you think support that conclusion.

 

[Samson]

Samson, you seem to be committing the mistake we see made by many conspiracy theorists; that is, starting with a conclusion based on little to no credible evidence, and then working backwards trying find things you think support that conclusion.

Let us try a definition.

A conspiracy theory is an explanatory hypothesis that accuses two or more persons, a group, or an organization of having caused or covered up, through secret planning and deliberate action, an event or situation which is typically taken to be illegal or harmful.

Note that I am not a conspiracy theorist, but a believer in intervention when the judicial system turns rogue. As I have mentioned, I have an interest in local cases that are unresolved.
The pattern that emerges with wrongful convictions varies little, but the solutions and outcomes vary widely from freeing the poor suckers to letting them suffer the prisoner's dilemma in perpetuity.

 

[Loss Leader]

Note that I am not a conspiracy theorist, but a believer ...

You are a believer. Facts enter into your calculations in now way at all. Instead, you declare an article of faith like a Catholic school pupil reciting a catechism.

 

[Samson]

You are a believer. Facts enter into your calculations in now way at all. Instead, you declare an article of faith like a Catholic school pupil reciting a catechism.

Naughty quoting. A believer in what should happen, not what does.
I said in the OP I suspected some sort of proaction by state department. I have no proof. I hoped the thread would find some substantiation, but none has emerged.
You win, my case is unproven.

 

[Loss Leader]

Naughty quoting. A believer in what should happen, not what does.
I said in the OP I suspected some sort of proaction by state department. I have no proof. I hoped the thread would find some substantiation, but none has emerged.
You win, my case is unproven.

Good enough.