Julian Assange: rapist or not?

[Laeke]

Allowed by who? He's free to leave the embassy any time he likes...

In the context of the article, it's evident that it means that Ecuador are possibly testing the waters. But I doubt the medical thing would stick. Unless it's a rare sickness that can only be cured in Ecuador...

 

[Silhouette]

ETA: IIRC, this is one of the articles that Bradley Manning has been charged with or will be charged with once his Article 32 hearing is completed. If anyone in this case is facing the death penalty, it's him; Assange's whining nonwithstanding.

Just out of curiosity, was Assange considered an enemy of the US before Bradley Manning allegedly leaked the cables, etc. or afterwards? If it was before then the case could be made that Manning knew that Assange was the enemy and knowingly gave the enemy information but if was afterwards then how could Manning have intended to give material to the enemy? If he had leaked the info to a newspaper, rather than WikiLeaks, and the newspaper published it, would he still be charged with aiding the enemy?

 

[BenBurch]

Just out of curiosity, was Assange considered an enemy of the US before Bradley Manning allegedly leaked the cables, etc. or afterwards? If it was before then the case could be made that Manning knew that Assange was the enemy and knowingly gave the enemy information but if was afterwards then how could Manning have intended to give material to the enemy? If he had leaked the info to a newspaper, rather than WikiLeaks, and the newspaper published it, would he still be charged with aiding the enemy?

If the disclosure, no matter who it was given to, aided the enemy, he would have been charged.

Marshall Field who owned the Tribune did not like FDR and was a Nazi sympathizer. A huge secret in WW2 was that we were putting out large numbers of wildfires in the American west because of incendiary balloons released by the Japanese.

We wanted to not have ANY news coverage of the fires so that Japan would not be able to see confirmation of the success of their efforts in captured newspapers.

It worked. And they gave up because they thought they had no effect.

Field was publishing fire reports against government advice, and FDR finally threatened to have him arrested for aiding the enemy and shot.

 

[Paninaro]

Sorry, but you are appealing to a wrong authority. Don't try to suggest that we should blindly believe the first expert to examine the evidence! That expert is clearly wrong, because the appeal to authority is a fallacy and also because they concluded that there was no case worth pursuing, and that is the wrong conclusion.

We should kowtow to the authority of courts later on in the process without examining the evidence, or pretend that there is secret evidence which the courts have seen and we have not, because the conclusion of those courts was the correct conclusion.

No real skeptic would rely on the appeal to authority argument when it's the wrong authority!

Sorry, but from your #2905 post I get the impression we're saying the same thing, more or less?

 

[Sabrina]

Just out of curiosity, was Assange considered an enemy of the US before Bradley Manning allegedly leaked the cables, etc. or afterwards? If it was before then the case could be made that Manning knew that Assange was the enemy and knowingly gave the enemy information but if was afterwards then how could Manning have intended to give material to the enemy? If he had leaked the info to a newspaper, rather than WikiLeaks, and the newspaper published it, would he still be charged with aiding the enemy?

If the disclosure, no matter who it was given to, aided the enemy, he would have been charged.

Marshall Field who owned the Tribune did not like FDR and was a Nazi sympathizer. A huge secret in WW2 was that we were putting out large numbers of wildfires in the American west because of incendiary balloons released by the Japanese.

We wanted to not have ANY news coverage of the fires so that Japan would not be able to see confirmation of the success of their efforts in captured newspapers.

It worked. And they gave up because they thought they had no effect.

Field was publishing fire reports against government advice, and FDR finally threatened to have him arrested for aiding the enemy and shot.

Generally speaking (and remember, IANAL, military or otherwise), I would operate on the idea that Manning's INTENT was to aid the enemy (which you'll note was the second element of the punitive article quoted in my earlier post; he could also fall under number 4 on that list, since the information he was providing was classified and could therefore have an effect on military operations if revealed), and so even if Assange and/or Wikileaks was not considered an enemy of the US before Manning was arrested, a lawyer probably could still argue for this charge. Now that Wikileaks HAS been declared an enemy of the US, it simply acts as a warning to any other potential leakers that they can face some pretty serious penalties if they provide information of any kind to Wikileaks. To the best of my knowledge, all Army (don't know about the other branches or the rest of DoD) personnel have been specifically ordered to not access Wikileaks at all, whether on personal or DoD computer systems; so it also becomes a matter of disobeying a lawful order as well as an issue of potential treason.

Again, IANAL, and I don't know for sure that they DO intend to charge Manning with violation of this particular article, but my personal opinion is that it applies. But only to Manning; Assange is not affected by this particular law at all.

 

[a_unique_person]

That only applies to US military personnel, did Assange join the US military or something?

Yes, the reporter said the death penalty applies to the military personnel. I think that's what I pointed out.

 

[a_unique_person]

Did you read the headline? It read

Problem is, they did no such thing. Ah, journalism .

So, did they lie then? Or just not understand what they were reporting on?

Reporters write the content, sub-editors write the headlines. The ones that are left, anyway.

 

[Joey McGee]

The Ecuadorean government expected a quick resolution when they granted Assange asylum,” says Latin America analyst James Bosworth. “Instead they’ve got a stalemate with no end in sight.”

oops

Well humiliation is always part of growing up I suppose.

http://m.csmonitor.com/World/Americ...ks-Day-100-inside-Ecuadorean-embassy/(page)/2

 

[JihadJane]

oops

Well humiliation is always part of growing up I suppose.

http://m.csmonitor.com/World/Americ...ks-Day-100-inside-Ecuadorean-embassy/(page)/2

It is noticeable that no supporting evidence is offered for reactionary blogger, James Bosworth's assertion.

Where's the humiliation? Imperialistic Anglo/US economic bullying is nothing new to Latin American countries.

'Confessions of an Economic Hit Man'

 

[Virus]

It is noticeable that no supporting evidence is offered for reactionary blogger, James Bosworth's assertion.

Where's the humiliation? Imperialistic Anglo/US economic bullying is nothing new to Latin American countries.

'Confessions of an Economic Hit Man'

Can you go one post without spam linking some professional BS artist or loony?

 

[trustbutverify]

From Wikipedia:

Other sources, including articles in the New York Times and Boston Magazine as well as a press release issued by the United States Department of State, have referred to a lack of documentary or testimonial evidence to corroborate the claim that the NSA was involved in his hiring to Chas T. Main. In addition, the author of the State Department release states that the NSA "is a cryptological (codemaking and codebreaking) organization, not an economic organization" and that its missions do not involve "anything remotely resembling placing economists at private companies in order to increase the debt of foreign countries."[10] Economic historian Niall Ferguson writes in his book The Ascent of Money that Perkins's contention that the leaders of Ecuador (President Jaime Roldós Aguilera) and Panama (General Omar Torrijos) were assassinated by US agents for opposing the interests of the owners of their countries' foreign debt "seems a little odd" in light of the fact that in the 1970s the amount of money that the US had lent to Ecuador and Panama accounted for less than 0.4% of the total US grants and loans, while in 1990 the exports from the US to those countries accounted for approximately 0.4% of the total US exports (approximately $8 billion). According to Ferguson, those "do not seem like figures worth killing for.

Nobody ever went broke telling desperate imbeciles what they wanted to hear.

 

[JihadJane]

An example of how political power trumps the law:

'The Young Man Being Extradited For What Grant Shapps Did'


"Shapps hasn’t even lost his job for committing out similar offences to this young man who is staring into the abyss of the US penal system."

Grant Shapps is co-chairman coalition Conservative party, the dominant partner in the coalition of ruling corporatocrocrats currently representing banking interests in the UK.

 

[The Dark Lord]

What the **** does somebody being extradicted to the US for copyright violations have to do with your hero Julian Assange being an alleged rapist.

 

[BenBurch]

What the **** does somebody being extradicted to the US for copyright violations have to do with your hero Julian Assange being an alleged racist.

Before anybody comments, I am certain he meant to type "rapist".

 

[The Dark Lord]

Before anybody comments, I am certain he meant to type "rapist".

I did. Thank you.

 

[JihadJane]

Amnesty International : 'Sweden should issue assurance it won’t extradite Assange to USA'

Amnesty International believes that the forced transfer of Julian Assange to the USA in the present circumstances would expose him to a real risk of serious human rights violations, possibly including violation of his right to freedom of expression and the risk that he may be held in detention in conditions which violate the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

 

[The Dark Lord]

So what.

 

[theprestige]

So what.

So even Amnesty International agrees that Sweden's case against Assange has merit, and that there is no human rights violation in extraditing Assange to Sweden to face justice for the crimes of which he has been accused under Swedish law.

So instead of protesting what they believe to be a bogus extradition to Sweden, they are supporting a legitimate extradition to Sweden, on the condition that their conspiracy theory about US persecution of Assange is taken seriously by the Swedish authorities.

 

[Korren]

So instead of protesting what they believe to be a bogus extradition to Sweden, they are supporting a legitimate extradition to Sweden, on the condition that their conspiracy theory about US persecution of Assange is taken seriously by the Swedish authorities.

It's worth noting that the reasons Amnesty gives for why they think Sweden ought to give such guarantees: to protect the rights of the two women who've accused Assange. The whole piece seems to be phrased rather carefully, actually.

 

[Joey McGee]

Yeah AI on legal matters means as much as Ron Paul going to bat for this idiot, condemning Canada for not arresting Bush and the US for killing bin Laden. ****!