I’m honestly curious to see what effort the smear machine is going to produce after this:
The Pentagon said Sunday that it has a 120-member team prepared to review a leak of as many as 500,000 documents about the Iraq war, which are expected to be released by the WikiLeaks Web site this month.
Col. Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, said that the timing of the leak remains unclear but that the Defense Department is ready for a document dump as soon as Monday or Tuesday, a possibility raised in previous WikiLeaks statements.
After you’ve accused someone of rape, what else do you have left? Imply he’s Freemason or something?
R-Jud
Scientologist.
cleek
liberal
Comrade Javamanphil
Link him to Susstein and Van Jones via their cell phone speed dials and multiple sourced rumors. Actually, you could probably make a whole TV show like that on FNC.
IM
What did happen to these rape accusations anyway?
MTiffany
The way we make a fetish of “the innocence of childhood” in this country? Pedophile.
soonergrunt
The Pentagon isn’t calling him a rapist. The Swedish prosecutor is saying that a crime may have occurred and he may have committed that crime. The investigation continues.
That’s like a night and day difference, and it’s also irrelevant to the content of the package that’s soon to be released.
When did you become so freakishly paranoid? Having a conversation about this is kind of like your take on bipartisanship a while back:
salacious Crumb
Call him Julian Muhammad Shabazz Torrado Assange
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN)
So far as I know, there’s zero evidence that anyone in the US, or any other government, was behind the rape charges. The statements from the Swedish prosecutors at the time were that it was completely personal, and that there was some history between him and one of the accusers.
I’d really like to know if you have anything to back up the charge, or if you’re just bomb throwing without regards to accuracy.
soonergrunt
@IM: The prosecutor reinstated them about a week after they were first considered and then dropped. Sweden’s system being somewhat different than ours, we have no idea of the status of the investigation because they don’t hold press conferences every time the prosecutor sneezes.
MTiffany
@IM: I believe they’ve been flushed, like all shit should be.
@soonergrunt: Looks like it’ll have to be a double-flush then.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Murderer. He caused the death of Afghans that we didn’t kill.
Joseph Nobles
Wikileaks says there’s no truth to the rumor of an imminent release.
Ash Can
Maybe they’ll surprise us all to hell and back by ignoring Assange and addressing the issue of who’s leaking all this stuff in the first place.
…Nah. That’d make too much sense.
El Tiburon
@cleek:
Rapist, pedophile – all the same thing really.
Problem with the liberals,unlike the Nazis, is the liberals can’t make the trains run on time.
Also forced gaywad sex.
burnspbesq
My views on Assange are well known. I’m withholding judgment on this dump until we know more about (a) what’s in it and (b) how it came to be in Wikileaks’ possession.
Jack Bauer
The charges of rape arriving at the time of the leaks was just a coincidence. To believe anything else is rank conspiracy theorizing. Or something…
IM
So no news after the reinstatement.
They should hurry; justice delayed is justice denied, especially in criminal cases.
bkny
a dirty fucking hippie whose favorite actress is jane fonda.
El Tiburon
@Ash Can:
Indeed. The real issue here is who the rat-fink is and how fast we can lock him up as we look forward.
Joe Beese
Now that bin Laden is “known” to be in Pakistan, we have an excuse to launch the ground war there that the Pentagon wants.
How serendipitous!
Mnemosyne
Of course, given the differences in the laws between here and Sweden, what Assange was charged with (not using a condom despite his partner’s request) is not a crime here in the US and, frankly, sounds like it’s a pretty minor charge even in Sweden.
But you attach the scary scary words “sexual assault” and people like DougJ freak out and start talking about “conspiracies.”
Linda Featheringill
When you pick a fight with the big boys, you are going to take a few hits. Assange probably knew this going in. And he decided to release the information anyway.
I doubt if his feelings are hurt. He might be angry but not emotionally crushed.
El Tiburon
@burnspbesq:
Perhaps a very brief recap, as it really matters on anyone’s views of the messenger.
And this matters how…
soonergrunt
I mean, this is an organization that cannot even prevent one of the lowest-ranking people from saying something potentially embarrassing in a venue under their absolute control, and yet they can somehow cause rape charges to be let in another country, and do so with no evidence whatsoever of their involvement? Really?
I mean, you’re kidding, right?
IM
@burnspbesq:
a fairy, riding on a unicorn…
or perhaps Gates handed the information over as a good will gesture
or Julian Assange is traveling so much because he is a second James Bond. He did break and enter into the Pentagon, cracked some safes, stuffed the papers – all 500,00 of them – in a briefcase and…
BGinCHI
If the Pentagon keeps spending all my hard-earned tax money to read wiki-leaks docs, I’m going Galt.
MMonides
Re the rape allegation, having seen evidence neither way, I try to keep the existence of Ira Einhorn in mind before I jump to conclusions that it’s a smear.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN)
@Mnemosyne:
It may be a pretty minor charge in Sweden, and none here, but it shouldn’t be. That’s rape. If a woman gives assent to sex conditional on a condom, and you don’t use one, then she never gave consent.
Montysano
They will expose Assange’s association with Woodrow Wilson. Chalkboards will be required.
El Tiburon
@MMonides:
Perhaps Scott Ritter would be a better comparison.
Is it irresponsible to speculate? It’s irresponsible not to.
Ash Can
@El Tiburon: My point is that, if the leaks are actually a problem for the Pentagon, wouldn’t you think they’d focus on that aspect, rather than mobilizing after the fact and setting aside over a hundred personnel to chase after a horse that’s long since exited the barn at top speed? I’m not even talking about any potential illegality per se.
El Tiburon
@Ash Can:
With a gazillion employees and the oversight capabilities of a blind substitute teacher, controlling leaks at the Pentagon is probably a non-starter.
The fact they are mobilizing 120 people to ‘spin’ this away shows how serious these leaks are.
Martin
He’s a Kenyan Anticolonialist fagbagger!
Martin
@El Tiburon: No, it just shows that the Pentagon has 120 people with nothing better to do. Like that’s a big surprise.
soonergrunt
@Ash Can:
Already done.
Note that, had PFC Manning’s supervisors and peers and the IT people there done their jobs to standard, he never would have managed to get the data out of the facility.
wilfred
Don’t shoot the Muslimger.
mds
@R-Jud:
Nope, that would snare Sharron Angle, who has advocated for Scientology’s prison rehab program.
@MTiffany:
Nope, that would snare Ron Johnson, who mounted a stirring defense of the Catholic Church’s right not to be held accountable for its pedophilia rampage.
@IM:
Ken Buck dropped them, because he decided the purported victim was pro-abortion, and so had it coming.
@El Tiburon:
If any of the rat-finks are professional journalists, the Joe Miller campaign can probably help out with that.
sukabi
they’ll try to link him to “birtherism”, “trutherism” and if that doesn’t work will claim he’s the mysterious man on the grassy knoll.
singfoom
Hey,
What’s wrong with being a freemason? Jealous of the secret handshake? All you have to do to conquer the world is join us….
HyperIon
JC wrote:
Hey, why invoke the “smear machine”? There are plenty of bloggers (for example, somebody at LGM..can’t tell those guys apart) and commenters here who are on record being down on Assange.
daveNYC
I’m not sure that ‘rape’ is the word I’d use. Sexual endangerment, or something sounds more accurate. Otherwise I think you’d pretty quickly end up in crazy Israeli land, where you can accuse someone of rape because they lied about their ethnicity.
matoko_chan
i think…..the doc release will be next monday.
from Assange–
Assange learned.
The Afghan files were raw data that prettymuch no one read (except me i guess). That allowed the warpimps and the Pentagon to spin them as Assange Burns Our Noble Afghan Allies!
That won’t happen this time.
The revolution will be televised.
The reason i think the release will be next Monday, the monday before US elections, is this– the source (whoever that may be), did not get financial renumeration for the leaked docs. He/she asked Assange that Wikileaks “get the maximum possible political impact for the material provided”.
The timetable is correct also, because info-fatigue has set in over the A-stan docs.
Monday April 3– collateral murder video released.
Monday July 26– A-stan doc dump
Monday October 25?- Iraq docs
roughly plus-or-minus 3 months.
i could be wrong….i probably want it to happen next week….to mess with the elections.
Corner Stone
@salacious Crumb: I’ve started calling my son “Mahmoud”. He’s not sure why, exactly.
Mike
The reason I never believed the Pentagon attacks on Wikileaks founder Julian Assange isn’t that they smeared him as a rapist, it’s because if what he had done posed a serious threat to national security, the last thing they’d do is complain loudly and widely about what he had done, explained specifically what the risk to national security was and told potential enemies where they could go to read the documents themselves.
You never confirm a leak of classified information. That’s what the phrase “No comment” was invented for.
MTiffany
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN):
And if a man discusses the possibility of marriage with his girlfriend over dinner, and then later that evening an offer of marriage is not forthcoming post-coitus, that’s rape too, then? Men can be real assholes, but equating every lie and devious manipulation with rape trivializes rape.
sherifffruitfly
Has a black baby.
burnspbesq
@ El Camaron:
How Wikileaks got the documents matters a great deal. As discussed in the earlier thread, there are scenarios in which their involvement in obtaining stolen government documents could constitute conspiracy or aiding and abetting. Surely you understand that crimes should be punished.
burnspbesq
@matoko_chan:
And if Assange agreed, that’s enough to make a prima facie case for conspiracy to steal the documents. Oopsie! Some people should learn to shut up.
Bill Murray
@burnspbesq: advice for you to live by
Bill Murray
@HyperIon: well it was the non-guy at LGM, Charli Carpenter
Arclite
@ John Cole
I thought there was no Pentagon involvement in the rape accusation, despite Julian’s insinuation to the contrary.
matoko_chan
@burnspbesq: ummm…..you havent read the whole story.
Assange still says “alleged”.
Manning was caught while trying to find a ……umm….distributor for the stuff he had accumulated…it was a guvvie stooge that turned him in…..Lamo was a paid informant.
i dont understand you whiny bitter old people…..
i think Manning and Assange are heroes.
They have helped expose an immoral, unjust, and unwinnable war.
And you want to punish them?
soonergrunt
@Arclite: Well, I’m pretty sure if I were facing a rape allegation that even my son thought my be credible, I’d blame the Pentagon. You never know what fool might believe it, and more importantly, might send me money.
Arclite
@soonergrunt:
Well, sure, from Julian’s standpoint that’s true. And he may even believe the women were put up to it by American agents. They guy is making some pretty powerful enemies.
But I thought the matter was laid to rest for the rest of us.
soonergrunt
@Arclite:
As I said,
matoko_chan
“They’ve already called him a perve now what will they do?”
This.
Corner Stone
@Bill Murray:
Bah-zing!