Julian Assange does not go gently. The latest is that he’s sparked an international incident between Ecuador and the UK. Assange is seeking asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, and the UK sent a letter threatening Ecuador that it would enter the embassy (which is Ecuadorean territory) and arrest Assange. A few moments ago, the Ecuadorean Foreign Minister announced that Assange will be granted political asylum on the grounds of a risk of political persecution. Part of his rationale is that Ecuador asked Sweden for a guarantee that Assange will not be extradited to the US, and Sweden said no. Assange can still be arrested if he leaves the embassy, so I don’t know where this goes from here. Here’s the Guardian liveblog.
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cathyx
Good for Ecuador.
liberal
As someone pointed out to me in a thread where this was raised OT, it’s actually still British territory. The idea that an embassy is special is actually some Convention or another.
Punchy
Arrested by whom? British authorities have jurisdiction in Ecuador? Dont get it….
Ian
He still has to get to the airport, and the British can arrest him any time he steps on British soil (or revoke the Embassy’s diplomatic status under a 1987 law and simply go in, though that’s the nuclear option).
Alexandra
I live about five minutes from the embassy in Knightsbridge. There have been police car sirens throughout the night and at least one helicopter has been hovering in the area for the last 4-5 hours.
Todd
A bunch of people are going to get hurt over Assange’s dick. That’s the real joke.
Stick Bradley Manning with the same needle they should give Johnnie Pollard, as a lesson for others….
Douglas
That would the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961, to which the UK is a signatory.
Article 22:
1. The premises of the mission (that would be the embassy) shall be invioable. The agents of the receiving State (that would be the UK) may not enter them, except with the consent of the head of the mission.
2. (Host country is obligated to protect the embassy)
3. The premises of the mission, their furnishings and other property thereon and the means of transport of the mission (that would include cars driving, say, someone wanted by the host country to an airport… not sure if it includes airplanes?) shall be immune from search, requisition attachment or execution.
Ignoring that is something terrorists and rogue states do, and I’m not sure about rogue states.
But hey, we’re already in the habit of starting illegal wars of aggression, so what’s another violation of vitally important international law.
Steve
@liberal: To expand on what I said in that thread, it’s still British soil legally (Michael Dorf explains some of the legal stuff here), but as a practical matter it’s virtually unheard of for the host country to violate the sanctity of an embassy. But cases like the one in China with the blind dissident are extremely awkward since we can’t really expect China to put up with us hosting a little enclave within their country, accepting one refugee after another.
In one of the most famous and extreme historical examples, the anti-communist Cardinal Mindszenty lived at our embassy in Budapest for 15 years following the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. The fact that even the ruthless Soviets didn’t dare enter our embassy to capture him gives an indication of just how extraordinary it would be for Britain to “raid” the Ecuadorian embassy. On the other hand, bear in mind that even though the US was happy to welcome Soviet defectors during the Cold War, we didn’t provoke the USSR by allowing Soviet citizens to just walk into our embassy in Moscow and defect, while they were still technically on USSR soil.
Assange’s case is a little funny because even though it’s the British authorities who want him, it’s Sweden and not Britain which is the alleged persecutor, so Ecuador hasn’t crossed over quite as bold a line by granting him asylum on British soil. But Britain’s threat to come in and get him is an indication of how unhappy they are with this, although it remains unlikely they will actually follow through. I’d expect there will most likely be a negotiated resolution within the next few weeks.
hells littlest angel
Thank you, Ecuador!
As far as getting Assange to the airport goes, Ecuador can simply put him in the diplomatic pouch (which is not an actual pouch, of course).
Punchy
@Punchy: Never mind, I misread the article.
JPL
@Alexandra: Keep us updated.
liberal
@Todd:
Yeah, because we should execute those who expose the corruptions of empire.
Pollard is an entirely different issue.
liberal
@Steve:
I understand you want to be reasonable, but the British are just thoroughly hypocritical about this.
Not to mention Americans who piss and moan all the time about what Iran did.
Face
So if he cannot drive to the airport without being arrested, are those buildings equiped to handle a helicopter that could fly him outside of the UK and then board a flight to Ecuador?
Steve
@liberal: What Iran did was pretty serious, wasn’t it?
joes527
Anyone who believes that this has anything to do with a rape investigation is a tool.
Alexandra
@JPL:
I’m a bit too far away to see anything, so can’t take any pics on my phone unless I wander up there, which I had been thinking about, but I’ve got some work to do at the mo. Best updates will be on Twitter and various live blogs.
The embassy itself is quite a small building near a street corner, just behind Harrods. Have walked past it hundreds of times. There’s also a large armed response police unit stationed nearby on Walton Street; you can spot them by their red police cars. Must be quite a scrum up there and I’m not sure if the street my doctor’s surgery is on has been cordoned off, as some stated on Twitter last night.
To be honest, apart from that, I don’t have much of a view on the entire story as I haven’t been following it at all.
Steve
@Face: Try to imagine the scenario where someone tries to fly a helicopter into downtown Washington DC and evacuate someone from another country’s embassy. I’m pretty sure their best-case scenario would be getting forced down by the Air Force.
liberal
@Steve:
Sure. Though as payback for what the US did to Iran over the preceding decades, it’s pretty minor.
liberal
@joes527:
Agreed.
Poopyman
Nah, the Ecuadorans should just start shuttling cars through the Chunnel. One of them might have Assange, or maybe not.
Someguy
@Todd:
Comparing the two is facile. Pollard spied for the Zionists. Manning exposed U.S. wrongdoing all over the world, that occurred during the Bush Administration. Pollard deserves the needle. Manning deserves a Congressional Medal of Freedom. The opposite is likely to occur under the next Republican administration.
Joseph Nobles
Tom Cruise, where are you?
joes527
Looking for wife #4?
Cacti
Let the grandstanding little turd spend the next decade holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy. A lack of attention would be the greatest punishment he could receive.
dr. bloor
@liberal:
Vienna. And it’s a pretty big fucking deal, regardless of what the Brits might have you think.
Cacti
@Someguy:
Yes, it takes a true hero to document dump the names, DOBs, and SSNs of military personnel serving in the field.
They ought to bulldoze the Washington Monument and put a statue of him in its place.
Soonergrunt
@liberal: While I don’t think either of them deserves a needle, there really isn’t any difference that matters between Manning, Pollard, Ames, Walker, Lee, Pelton, or anyone else who betrayed their country for any reason. And that includes the people who do it for us.
Ben Franklin
Why did the Brits raise public awareness by this ham-handedness?
Why indeed….Quito was planning on making a decision at noon today. Could be they were thinking of denying, then this.
Is it possible the PTB wanted him sequestered under a make-shift house arrest?
Hmmmmmm
JPL
@Alexandra: It’s interesting because the noise of the sirens and helicopter probably tell you a lot.
The Guardian has this tidbit..
Patiño made it clear that Ecuador had asked Sweden for a guarantee that it would not extradite him to the US, were such a request made. But Sweden had said no, he said.
JPL
@Cacti: This!
Ash Can
@joes527: Yeah. Those broads are lying, and Assange can’t possibly be guilty of anything. He has nothing to hide; if he went on trial it would just give his enemies more information to criticize him with. So stop asking about those tax returns.
@Cacti: This. Too bad it took 25 comments to finally hit the nail on the head.
Steve
@Ben Franklin: Your verb tenses are messed up. Ecuador didn’t announce it was going to make a decision today until the press conference where it revealed the British letter. It could just as well be that they would have kept stalling for weeks.
ericblair
@Cacti:
My feelings as well. Assange is a self-promoting opportunist who indiscriminately dumps protected information from whatever source he can get his hands on and wraps himself in philosophical language that he has no intention of applying to his own conduct.
That said, the British violating the Ecuadorian embassy would almost be an act of war, and would probably lose the Brits any international support they had. It would be incredibly reckless and stupid.
You can’t get clever and take someone out of an embassy in a diplomatic pouch. It would be considered an abuse of the privilege (shit like this has happened before), and there wouldn’t be much diplomatic pushback from anyone if the Brits laughed and grabbed him at the airport.
Cacti
@Ash Can:
How dare you!
Assange is fighting for his human right to violate the laws of 3 countries without consequence, and the Australian government won’t assist him in this endeavor.
Persecution!
Jose Padilla
@Steve:
Actually, the US had a number of Soviet Jews living in the basement of the embassy in Moscow throughout most of the 70s.
Ben Franklin
@Steve:
And…stalling for 6 months, 2 years does what? Why bring this to the top of the News?
mistermix
@Ash Can: If the concern was really the two women, why wouldn’t Sweden agree not to extradite Assange to the US. I’d like to see him tried in Sweden, ASAP. Instead, we have this shitshow.
@Cacti: The way this was handled will give Assange more attention, not less. Now it’s going to be a long, drawn out spat over whether the Ecuadoreans can transport Assange out of the country. It didn’t have to be that way. The Brits basically pushed Ecuador into this with their asinine threat – if they had backed down, they would have looked like they were surrendering to a threat of having their embassy invaded. Maybe it would have happened anyway, but the UK sealed the deal.
joes527
@Ash Can: I have no opinion about whether a crime occurred in Sweden.
But anyone who believes that the UK is threatening to shred the Vienna Convention in order to assist a crime investigation in another country is an idiot and a tool.
Assange has been claiming that the deportation has nothing to do with a rape investigation, and the UK just proved his point.
Ash Can
@ericblair:
In all seriousness, this too. I have the impression that this option may have been mentioned by someone as being at least possible, and the news services ran with it as making for a good headline and story. At least, I hope that’s the case. I don’t think even rape allegations should lead to something this extreme. Let him stay in the embassy and rot; don’t go to war over it.
Ben Franklin
@mistermix:
Sweden’s Laws are a joke. This one is written so loosely :), you can be convicted for playing soft music before the seduction.
Cassidy
@Someguy: NO, Manning is on the same level as those who outed Plame; a traitor and worthless pile of shit. He needs to be put on trial and, if found guilty, spend the majority of his life in prison.
mistermix
@Ben Franklin: My understanding is Assange agreed to go to Sweden as long as they agreed not to extradite, so he was willing to have his day in court on those charges, no matter how Sweden’s laws are written.
Soonergrunt
@mistermix: There hasn’t been any extradition request from the US to anywhere regarding Assange. Whatever Manning is charged with (and the Trial Counsel can prove) there is no evidence, at least in the public sphere of which I am aware, that Assange has committed an actual prosecutable crime under US law.
All this speculation about what the US might or might not do serves only to muddy the waters about the only questions that actually matter here–does Sweden have a right under international law to demand Julian Assange be returned to their jurisdiction so that they may answer the question of whether or not he committed the crime of rape as defined by Swedish law against two Swedish persons while under Swedish jurisdiction?
Having said all of that, why should Sweden or Great Britain give up any sovereignty at all to get the justice to which they are entitled under the international treaties to which they are signatory states?
Ash Can
@mistermix: See Cacti @ 27. We don’t get to pick and choose which criminals to coddle just because they’re doing something we think is cool. And frankly, if you’re willing to give Assange a pass for what he’s done, I really have to question your priorities.
@joes527: See my comment right after yours. I do agree about the raiding-the-embassy bit, and I’m not convinced that the British authorities are on the verge of doing this. If in fact they are, it would be beyond stupid and counterproductive. But I’m not convinced that’s the case.
SRW1
@mistermix:
This. The way this shit is being handled makes everybody except Assange look like assholes.
Ben Franklin
@Ash Can:
But I’m not convinced that’s the case.
You smell something, but you don’t know, and don’t care what it is, cuz Assange is a low-life. Pure Genius.
Corner Stone
@Ash Can:
What would that be?
joes527
@Ash Can:
Go read the linked article. The UK officially delivered a letter to Ecuador that said:
Now, I’m hoping with you, that cooler heads will prevail, and this was just a bluff.
But even as a bluff, this is way, _way_ way out of proportion with an extradition to assist a crime investigation.
THAT. ISN’T. WHAT’S. HAPPENING. HERE.
Corner Stone
I say we bar the doors to the embassy and then burn it to the ground. No need to enter, problem solved.
Ben Franklin
@mistermix:
Sigh. My point was that there’s a lot of bullshit stinking up the room
Corner Stone
Don’t we have somebody who can slip in there and poison his fish n chips? I mean, he’s obviously guilty of something so let’s just be done with the murderous scumbag.
Cacti
@Corner Stone:
I say we hold a special session of the UN General Assembly, and pass the Treaty of Assange, giving him an international right to ignore whatever law he chooses, provided that it’s “for the greater good”.
Ben Franklin
@Corner Stone:
HEMLOCK !!!!!
Cacti
Julian Assange’s Mom says he’s persecuted.
Good enough for me.
joes527
@Corner Stone: Maybe Andrey Lugovoy could get back in the UK’s good graces if he does this one little job for them, eh?
The Moar You Know
@Todd: Fully agree. I know what happens to me if I hand over classified material. Why should Manning get different treatment? He took the risk, let him reap the rewards.
As to Assange, let him rot in the embassy until the Ecuadorians get tired of paying for his room and board. Or hell, let him go to Ecuador. Something overlooked by a lot of folks is that the United States and Ecuador have an extradition treaty. I’m sure Julian will be handed over pretty quickly the first time they need a favor.
Corner Stone
@Cacti: Which law is he ignoring?
Ash Can
@Ben Franklin: Julian Assange has admitted to doing things that we would be calling for blood for if some prominent RWNJ had done them instead, and I’m not even talking about the rape allegations. As for those rape allegations themselves, support swings so fast away from the potential victims and in favor of the alleged perpetrator in this case that it gives me whiplash to watch. And it’s all because people are SO convinced that this guy couldn’t POSSIBLY be guilty because he’s Robin Hood or some other guy from the movies. Something stinks, all right, and it’s everywhere.
Cacti
Julian Assange is the MLK of the internet age.
Remember when MLK fled to the Mexican embassy to avoid being jailed in Birmingham?
Frankensteinbeck
@Ben Franklin:
There is a lot of bullshit stinking up the room, but it’s on every side. The US hasn’t charged Assange with anything, and there’s zero reason for them not to if they actually intend to extradite. Britain might as well dig him out of the Ecuadorian embassy for the US as Sweden. Sweden’s refusal to promise not to extradite him sounds weird, but why would they ever make a promise like that in the first place? Accused criminals generally don’t get to make demands to tie a country’s hands in the case of future diplomatic situations. Because Assange isn’t wanted for political crimes, Ecuador is being weirdly an ass, but Britain being this eager is also strange as Hell. And whether or not anyone would ever charge him with crimes for his document releases, he’s certainly pissed off a lot of people who might not treat him like a normal criminal.
But there’s nothing normal about this anyway. How often does a man in one country ask for asylum from a second country so he won’t be extradited to a third country because he’s afraid of prosecutions that haven’t been threatened in a fourth country?
For my final note, I don’t think Assange is important enough to care about. He’s never accomplished anything more than tweaking America’s nose – and that was with the diplomatic documents, not the war stuff.
Ash Can
@joes527: Fair enough. As I’ve said, I’m willing to fault the UK government for going overboard with their pressure. But it doesn’t automatically absolve Assange.
socraticsilence
Its possible to be against extradition to the US and still think he needs to go on trial in Sweden right, I mean its a more than a bit disturbing to see the trivialization of rape by some on here. Additioanlly, can we quit pretending that Manning is freaking Daniel Ellsburg? One, he was a sitting member of the military, two its not like he leaked a few selected documents he actively leaked millions of documents without a single thought as to the innocent lives that would be harmed by said leak, and three its the number of said documents that’s going to cost him his freedom for the remainder of his life even if he got a sentence so laughably trivial as to actually encourage future leakers say a day a document he’d be facing multiple millenia
Steve
@ericblair: I think “almost an act of war” is about right, although it might be a little over the top. I think some people don’t get that granting someone asylum from the host country in your embassy, while arguably not quite as bad as using force, is nevertheless of the same degree. Just as with the blind Chinese dissident, if you do this you have to be willing to make a severe international incident over it.
@Ben Franklin: Stalling preserves the status quo, which is just fine with Ecuador (and Assange). I don’t know why you’d assume Ecuador would make any decision at all if Britain hadn’t pushed them into it. It’s not like Ecuador has been down at the law library the last two months researching the finer points of extradition; they’ve simply been stalling.
@joes527: Britain of course wouldn’t invade an embassy over some random rape defendant, but Ecuador wouldn’t be risking its embassy to shield some random rape defendant either, so the situation wouldn’t come up.
Corner Stone
@Ash Can:
Who’s saying this?
Ben Franklin
@Ash Can:
I’ll tell you what the real issue is; Assange dared to tickle the Dragon’s tail, and that, cannot, be tolerated. If one guy can stick his stink finger in it’s eye and walk away, it’s all over. They must inspire the Fear, or their power evaporates. Whatever crimes Assange is guilty of, they are window dressing, compared to the ultimate crime.
Ben Franklin
@Steve:
Stalling preserves the status quo
Yeah, that’s SOP for bureaucrats. The question is; why was it forced? What is it we don’t see?,
Steve Crickmore
Daniel Ellsberg, who thinks Manning performed “a valuable service” was arrested 80 times. If they had kept Ellsberg in jail the first time, four administrations would have been spared much embarassment over the way the Pentagon was conducting the Vietnam war. Whistleblowers are heroes in other countries, but here, they and a publisher like Assange, are persecuted for exposing embarrassing ‘secret’ practices in the last two administrations, including this one, and progressive blogs like Balloon Juice are split down the middle.
Corner Stone
@Steve:
Is there an etiquette guide we can refer to when it comes to decisions of an embassy?
Cacti
@Frankensteinbeck:
It was a strange request for Ecuador to make in the first place. Not only are they meddling in a hypothetical issue, over which they have no sovereign or jurisdictional claims, they would have no means of enforcing such a promise.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I don’t know, on the one hand government secrecy always goes to far, on the other a lot of wiki leaks was pure dickishness, like the diplomatic cables. Since the cables were nothing more than gossip from the Ambassadors there was good reason to keep them secret.
Corner Stone
@socraticsilence:
For example?
Soonergrunt
@Frankensteinbeck: What’s weird about nation states wanting to enforce their own laws? Britain has a law which says that people wanted for crimes in Sweden (among other places) cannot use British territory to evade criminal prosecution. Sweden has what they consider to be a prosecutable case, and they wouldn’t be making pre-emptive deals with other rape suspects, why should they make a special case for Julian Assange?
The people acting weirdly here are the Ecuadorans, who are throwing out treaties with Sweden and Great Britain.
@socraticsilence: And yes, it’s possible to think that Sweden has a right to try Assange for rape regardless of what one might think about the (non-existent) case (that has never been pressed because it doesn’t exist) that the US might have against Assange.
Cacti
@Corner Stone:
See post #68.
Ben Franklin
@Frankensteinbeck:
He’s never accomplished anything more than tweaking America’s nose
True that. But, they want a chilling effect on leaks, and the potential for a major rat-fucking is the genuine concern of not just THIS country.
ericblair
@Steve: Yeah, and as Frankensteinbeck nicely summarized above, everybody involved is acting like a bunch of cats stuffed into a sack and I’m not sure how things got this out of hand diplomatically.
Ash Can
@Ben Franklin:
Romantic bullshit. Assange at the very best is a huge commercial fishing trawler casting an enormous dragnet that captures all kinds of endangered species along with the tuna it’s aiming for, and kills everything indiscriminately. We don’t need the fucking tuna that badly.
Ben Franklin
@Soonergrunt:
The people acting weirdly here are the Ecuadorans, who are throwing out treaties with Sweden and Great Britain.
I think you a allowing your distaste for Assange limit your eyesight. What is really odd, is the threat of storming an Embassy, despite International Treaties, over putative sexual crimes.
Ben Franklin
@Soonergrunt:
The people acting weirdly here are the Ecuadorans, who are throwing out treaties with Sweden and Great Britain.
I think you a allowing your distaste for Assange limit your eyesight. What is really odd, is the threat of storming an Embassy, despite International Treaties, over putative sexual crimes.
Ben Franklin
@Soonergrunt:
The people acting weirdly here are the Ecuadorans, who are throwing out treaties with Sweden and Great Britain.
I think you a allowing your distaste for Assange limit your eyesight. What is really odd, is the threat of storming an Embassy, despite International Treaties, over putative sexual crimes.
Ben Franklin
@Soonergrunt:
The people acting weirdly here are the Ecuadorans, who are throwing out treaties with Sweden and Great Britain.
I think you a allowing your distaste for Assange limit your eyesight. What is really odd, is the threat of storming an Embassy, despite International Treaties, over putative sexual crimes.
Steve
@Corner Stone: You could read up on international law with some of the time you spend posting snarky comments.
joes527
@Corner Stone: Ben Franklin @41
Ben Franklin
@Soonergrunt:
The people acting weirdly here are the Ecuadorans, who are throwing out treaties with Sweden and Great Britain.
I think you a allowing your distaste for Assange limit your eyesight. What is really odd, is the threat of storming an Embassy, despite International Treaties, over putative sexual crimes.
NobodySpecial
@Cacti: You’re answering his question with a post from the future (as it relates to your response) that doesn’t say what you claim it says.
Talking about his whistleblowing =/= absolving any rape charges. Plus that whole ‘I’ll just use posts from the future to prove my past assertions!’ is just plain dumb.
joes527
@Corner Stone: Ben Franklin @41
Cacti
@Corner Stone:
The norms of international law, starting with the Treaty of Westphalia.
Ben Franklin
@joes527:
Huh?
Cacti
@NobodySpecial:
Oh noes, I’ve violated NobodySpecial’s Rules of Order for BalloonJuice Discussion. Perhaps I’ll flee to the nearest Ecuadorian embassy.
Well, that’s your interpretation anyway.
joes527
@Ben Franklin: I was answering a question about who was trivializing rape here.
Ben Franklin
Oops—–my apologies.
Ben Franklin
@joes527:
Yeah. I got that. And it will be as difficult for me to defend myself, as it is for Assange.
Corner Stone
@Steve: Why would I waste my time doing that when we’re lucky enough to have an individual so steeped in the matters of int’l etiquette as yourself explain to us how we’re not quite getting something?
ericblair
@Ben Franklin:
I don’t think you have to apologize for WP projectile vomiting all over the carpet again.
Cassidy
Those women aren’t claiming rape. No, they’re proclaiming GREAT! What’s a little forced penetration in service to indiscriminately releasing documents on the internet. Every woman should be so lucky to be on the receiving end of freedom fucks.
Soonergrunt
@Ben Franklin: I get that your deep abiding love of Assange has blinded you to the possibility that other people are making a rational argument, but the people who are acting stupidly in all of this are the Ecuadorans.
They have no upside to their behavior here. Unless you think that protecting accused rapists is a legitimate exercise of state power.
Hell, the MOST rational actor in this whole drama is Julian Assange.
Cacti
@Cassidy:
They’re dirty sluts, who were probably paid by the CIA.
My progressive betters have told me so.
Steve
@Corner Stone: Like I said, there’s plenty for you to read if you actually want to educate yourself on international law. Or you could be the sort of person who thinks you’re an expert on diplomatic immunity because you watched Lethal Weapon 2.
Corner Stone
Somehow supporting Assange’s right to seek asylum is equal to dismissing rape allegations, even though my reading of this thread has yet to discern anyone actually dismissing the charges against Assange.
I see some alluding that they believe there’s more to the story than the outcomes we’re seeing now, but those claims also do not equal a dismissal of the charges.
pseudonymous in nc
Hard cases make bad law. In this case, you have Assange and his ego-larger-than-Ecuador versus a British government that really does not want to be made to look like fools.
Corner Stone
@Steve: Probably the best of the Lethal Weapon series, and I’ll thank you kindly to not besmirch it.
There’s lots of things to read about lots of things, but since I never held myself out to be an expert on diplomatic immunity, or diplomacy in general, and I did not make very broad claims that “people don’t get” that asylum is one step to the side of pistols at dawn, I’ll continue to rely on your expert critique and analysis. Thanks.
joes527
@pseudonymous in nc:
They’re doin it rong!
Catsy
@Cacti: International diplomacy is able to exist because countries agree to abide by otherwise unenforceable promises.
Setting aside everything else, if Sweden gave Ecuador that promise and then handed Assange over to the US, no one would trust Sweden’s word on a diplomatic agreement again for a very long time.
Cacti
@Corner Stone:
His right to seek asylum from what? The super double plus secret plot of the United States to extradite him from Sweden?
The only thing he’s avoiding right now is extradition as a person of interest in a Swedish criminal investigation.
jlow
@Cacti: Obviously there is no precedent of the US acting outside of the law when pursuing threats to the empire.
Cacti
@Catsy:
Actually, you’ve got it backwards here. Sweden has an extradition treaty with the United States, and Ecuador is asking for assurances that Sweden will not honor it, in the face of criminal charges that may arise at some future point.
Ecuador is asking for a “gentleman’s agreement” to take precedence over a treaty with an uninvolved nation. Sweden is right to tell them to go pound sand.
Cacti
@jlow:
I agree.
Julian Assange’s accusers are the dirtiest of whores, in the service of the CIA.
Amir Khalid
I tend to agree with Soonergrunt. Sweden wants him so it can indict him and try him for rape. Whatever you think of the charge, or of the circumstances around it, he has to face it. I don’t blame Sweden for refusing to commit to not extraditing Assange to the USA. If the US makes a valid request, they’d have to honor it.
And the Guardian’s liveblog points out Britain’s dilemma: There’s a European arrest warrant out for Assange. Britain must honor it and arrest him for extradition to Sweden. On the other hand, if it storms the Ecuadorian embassy, no British Embassy or High Commission on the planet will ever be safe from being stormed by a host country.
Ecuador might have been wiser to stay out of this. On the face of it at least, Assange’s case is a purely criminal matter which it has butted into, on the assumption that Assange is being set up for political reasons. That assumption has led to interference with due process of law in Sweden, and put a third country, Britain, in a bind.
That messed-up kid Bradley Manning really doesn’t have much to do with this stand-off. He’s being dealt with separately. My own guess is that he’s bound for a stretch in a military prison.
Corner Stone
@Cacti:
And, if Steve will pardon my interloping on his turf for a minute, that is all that’s necessary for someone to request asylum.
Carl Nyberg
I gotta say, it’s a bit weird Sweden won’t commit to not transferring Assange to the United States.
And it’s exceedingly weird if Britain is violating the sovereignty of the Ecuadorian embassy over an arrest warrant for a criminal matter by the government of Sweden.
Steve
@Catsy: Right, but do you see why it’s a ridiculous promise to ask for? Assange hasn’t been accused of anything by the US, but he wants Sweden to promise that whatever he hypothetically might be accused of in the future, whatever the evidence may be, Sweden will under no circumstances honor its extradition treaty with the US.
Of course, that leads us to the complete and utter absurdity of Ecuador’s decision to grant asylum. No one claims Assange will be persecuted or tortured in Sweden; in fact for all I know he is the first person in the history of the world to be granted asylum from extradition to that lovely Nordic country. The sole reason for asylum is that maybe, hypothetically, someday Sweden could extradite Assange to the US to face some charges that he hasn’t even been accused of yet, and since Sweden won’t promise that they will never ever do that, we have to assume it will happen. By this logic, everyone is entitled to asylum from extradition.
Ecuador’s claim is unsustainable under international law, and for that reason I feel confident there will be a negotiated resolution very soon.
Utt Bugley
Is the invasion of a sovereign Central American nation’s embassy an act of aggression that violates the Monroe Doctrine?
Steve
@Carl Nyberg: It’s not weird at all. Why on earth would Sweden sign an extradition treaty in the first place, if it’s willing to promise every random individual that under no circumstances will they be extradited to the US?
Steve
@Utt Bugley: No, embassies are not literally sovereign.
Cacti
@Corner Stone:
The relevant UN declarations and conventions recognize a right to seek asylum for fear of persecution on protected grounds.
I was unaware that flight to avoid prosecution for crimes against a person was a protected ground.
Catsy
@Cacti:
I’m afraid it’s not as black-and-white as you’re making it out to be. You’re either forgetting or omitting the part where Assange is claiming political asylum from persecution by the United States–something that, whatever else you think of the man (and I don’t think much of him), is far from being an irrational claim.
Most extradition treaties have an exception for individuals who have committed “political offenses” against the country seeking extradition. Sweden has such an exception:
As does the United States.
No. Ecuador is agreeing with Assange’s claim that he fears political persecution if he is extradited to the United States, and is asking Sweden for assurances it will honor that claim of asylum under its own laws if he is extradited to Sweden to answer the charges against him.
Corner Stone
@Cacti: He has the right to seek asylum and make his case that it is warranted. Obviously, for whatever reasoning or rationale, Ecuador agreed with the asserted case.
Cacti
@Carl Nyberg:
Try saying it this way:
It’s a bit weird that Sweden won’t preemptively agree not to honor a standing treaty with another nation.
Sound a bit less weird now?
Cassidy
@Catsy: That is some pretzel logic bullshit.
Soonergrunt
@Carl Nyberg: It’s weird that Sweden won’t commit to violating their own laws?
@Utt Bugley: Can we arrest George H.W. Bush for violating the sovereignty of the Nicaraguan embassy during the invasion of Panama in 1989?
Joe Buck
Even the communist Hungarians and the USSR respected the sanctity of embassies. Should the British invade the embassy against the will of Ecuador, they would be in Ayatollah Khomeini territory.
The Ecuadorians have made clear that they would have sent Assange to Sweden if they had gotten an assurance that Sweden wouldn’t extradite him to the US. The Swedes refused to do that.
People are also ignoring that Assange has not been charged with any crime. Officially, he is only wanted for questioning, and the Swedish prosecutor has refused all arrangements that would have allowed Assange to be questioned remotely (at the Swedish embassy in London or elsewhere), and the Swedes have said that Assange would be promptly imprisoned and held incommunicado when he arrived in Sweden. This is very suspicious for someone who is officially only wanted for questioning.
Cardinal Mindszenty spent 15 years in the US embassy in Hungary. Perhaps Assange will run Wikileaks from the Ecuadoran embassy for the next decade.
Catsy
@Cassidy: Thank you for your erudite, reasoned response. I would rebut it but there is nothing of substance in your comment to answer. Try again. This time preferably with something above the level of “nanny nanny boo boo”.
joes527
@Amir Khalid:
This has not been treated as a “purely criminal matter” since Assange went in for questioning in Sweden and was told that he was free to go.
Everything that has happened since has been completely out of proportion with the purported “purely criminal matter.” To characterize Ecuador’s involvement as “butting in” to due process is dishonest on its face.
Cassidy
Spread it bitches! Julian is in the house and has some freedom juice to spill. We can do this the easy way or the hard way…
Oh, and don’t persecute me, bro.
Cacti
@Catsy:
*Forehead slap
I keep forgetting about the super double plus secret plan of the United States to extradite him from Sweden.
As opposed to the real world criminal investigation, for which he is a person of interest.
And again, whether Assange was subject to US persecution, and should not be extradited from Sweden on that basis, is a matter for Swedish authorities. Ecuador is sticking its nose into Swedish sovereignty and its affairs with other sovereign nations.
So again, Sweden was right to tell Ecuador to pound sand.
Cassidy
@Catsy: Um, no. I was pretty concise. Youhave bent logic and reason into the shape of a pretzel to support something that isn’t supported by fact. The only step you have left is to perform an alleged Julian on it.
Secondly, it was more of an observation, not really requiring a retort. You see, if you’re so far in nutter territory to see the same conspiracies in Assange’s fever dreams, I’m not really interested in a debate. My personal opinion is that Assange is a chickenshit who is coming up with any reason to not face rape charges.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Joe Buck:
Not when the person who is wanted for questioning has already fled the country at least once and is now trying to claim political asylum so he can continue to avoid being questioned.
Prosecutors don’t like it when suspects flee the country and then do everything they can to avoid being returned. They tend to find it a bit suspicious, frankly.
Cacti
@Joe Buck:
Those damned, trouble-making Swedes. How could they not preemptively agree to violate a treaty with a third party nation.
The norms of international law should all be shitcanned for Julian Assange. Because, he’s like a hero or something.
Cacti
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
You might even think they’d make laws about that sort of thing, and call them something like unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.
joes527
@Amir Khalid:
This has not been treated as a “purely criminal matter” since Assange went in for questioning in Sweden and was told that he was free to go.
Everything that has happened since has been completely out of proportion with the purported “purely criminal matter.” To characterize Ecuador’s involvement as “butting in” to due process is dishonest on its face.
Socraticsilence
@Corner Stone: Ben’s comments at 41 seem to be a pretty fucking clear trivialization of rape, tell me that’s not a evolutionary answer to people scoffing “as if a husband could rape his wife” or “he already bought her some drinks”
Steve
The Guardian’s reporting, by the way, has really been spectacular as far as explaining the legal issues and arguments on all sides of the controversy. I really can’t say enough about how well they’re covering this.
Cassidy
@Steve: Just go ahead and cry as our media is incapable.
joes527
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
AKA leaving the country after being denied a residence permit.
But you are right, “fled the country” has a more romantic ring to it.
Catsy
@Cacti:
Oh, please. It’s hardly a stretch for Assange to fear that the US–which has been horribly embarrassed and even damaged politically by him–would manufacture a premise to extradite him from Sweden. You may not agree with his claim to fear persecution, but your agreement is not required in order for it to be a credible fear.
I’m sure at some point in this thread you will stop turning your arguments into meaningless gibberish by willfully conflating 1) the rape charges against Assange in Sweden with 2) his claims that he fears persecution by the United States if he is extradited there.
You are talking past pretty much everyone when you keep pretending that this is about 1) when it is really about 2).
Ecuador has granted political asylum to someone claiming a fear of persecution by another Country A. Ecuador is entirely within its rights to insist that before it hands over that person to Country B for unrelated, legitimate charges, it receive assurances that Country B will not render this person to Country A where he fears political persecution.
Again, you do not have to agree that Assange’s claim is valid in order to recognize the incontrovertible fact that both Swedish and US law explicitly carve out an exception in their extradition treaties for those they recognize as political refugees. The fact that such an exception exists is entirely separate from the question of whether or not Assange has a legitimate claim to asylum.
Repeatedly mischaracterizing what Ecuador is asking Sweden to do as a “violation” of a treaty that explicitly sets out an exception for this very kind of claim does not lend your arguments credibility.
@Cassidy: My apologies; I seem to have made the mistake of assuming that you were arguing in good faith. I won’t make that mistake again; run along now.
Amir Khalid
@joes527:
Quoth The Grauniad:
That sounds like a purely criminal matter to me. As for Ecuador: I know it was Assange who approached them for asylum, but by giving it to him they did indeed butt into this matter.
Cassidy
@Catsy: Umm, #2 in your post DOESN’T FUCKING EXIST! He might as well be saying don’t extradite me to Austrailia just in case they harbor aliens and I’m scared of aliens. But hey, rape (#1) is okay as long as it’s done by your guy right. And once he gets his freedom fuck out of the way, you can lap up some yummy goodness documents.
God, I’d hate to see what kind of russian hooker contortions you’d go into if Sandusky had been a critic of the US gov’t.
Corner Stone
@Socraticsilence: Ben can defend his comments, or not, as he chooses. I read comment #41 in a way I believe Ben meant them, which was he feels there’s a lot going on in this case. The smiley face in the middle of the comment may have thrown me off, and maybe I’m wrong about what he meant.
Cassidy
@Catsy: Shorter Catsy: Nothing like a little forced penetration to get Julian primed for hitting that enter button. I like how he criticizes the US gov’t, so tell those bitches to go get some counseling or something and close their slutty legs.
The Tragically Flip
The United States has functioned a rogue nation for at least 11 years now, just counting to the post-9/11 Bush years (to say nothing of the stuff say Noam Chomsky would bring up before that).
I cannot blame anyone anywhere for taking measures to avoid being extradited or seized by the US. The US government has already formally taken the position that non-citizens have no rights whatsoever, can be declared “illegal combatents” by itself, and held forever in black hole dungeons without recourse. Even freaking citizens are not totally immune for this, though at least they can usually get courts to eventually intervene.
When the US starts respecting the rule of law even slightly, I’ll join the chorus calling on Assange to turn himself into Sweden and face the risk the US might extradite him. As it stands, he’s wisely avoiding a life sentence without trial in Gitmo or Bagram. It’s his life on the line, and crying that the idea that US will have him extradited from Sweden is some kind of conspiracy theory is really not very persuasive when you’re talking about the country that thinks it’s ok to execute people without trials by drones piloted by civilians (automatically a war crime in itself).
As a non-US citizen, even I’m quite nervous travelling there. It’s fucking bullshit and liberals should not be shitting on people who don’t want to face your kangaroo courts.
Cassidy
@The Tragically Flip: So the women who have accused him shouldn’t get a fair and thorough investigation, possibly their day in court and justice served (if he did perform those crimes) because you’re scared of being sent to a black hole prison over some edgy blog comments?
liberal
@Soonergrunt:
Except that Manning didn’t betray his country.
Steve
@Catsy: I’ve actually never heard of Assange’s argument as a legitimate basis for asylum. You can say “don’t send me to Sweden because Sweden will persecute me.” You may even be able to say “don’t send me to Sweden because I have actual evidence that they intend to send me to the US.” But you can’t say “don’t send me to Sweden because the hypothetical possibility exists that they might extradite me to the US for some unknown crime in the event the US asks them to.” That’s just bizarre.
The list of examples where someone has been granted asylum in an embassy even though the host country wants to arrest them is very short. I don’t think there is a single example on the list that remotely resembles this case. People are up in arms about the mere threat that Britain might enter the embassy – which would certainly be a big deal, if it actually happened – while failing to acknowledge that Ecuador has already done something which is a serious violation of British sovereignty and a likely violation of international law.
joes527
@Amir Khalid: You see to be pointedly missing the point.
Process in this case hasn’t been due by any objective standard, since at least late 2010. Everything that has happened since then has been more properly characterizable as “extraordinary process.”
The fact that Ecuador did something extraordinary was pretty much par for the course in this case.
Pretending that this was progressing as due process for a purely criminal matter until Ecuador butted their nosy noses into it is transparently dishonest.
Todd
I just wanted to say I just ran a search of this thread for the term “cudlip” and didn’t find it. I also looked for other big words used incomprehensibly and missed them.
Count me as disappointed.
ericblair
@The Tragically Flip:
I’m amazed it took almost 140 posts to get here. Quite a record, actually.
liberal
@socraticsilence:
Do you have any idea how voluminous the Pentagon Paper were?
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@Cacti:
Assange’s argument is that he won’t get a fair trial in Sweden or the US. That may or may not be true, but either way, that claim has generally been considered grounds for requesting asylum. Isn’t that why the US gives asylum to Chinese dissidents?
As for the sovereignty of Ecuador’s embassy, please bear in mind that even Saddam Fucking Hussein respected the US embassy back in the 1991 war. It’s one of the cornerstones of the relations between modern states. IMO, Assange is a wannabe punk who’s gotten in way over his head… but is this little shit really worth throwing away 400+ years of Westphalian sovereignty?
Anyone here who’s ever chirruped ‘Rule of Law! Rule of Law!’ (including me) should have some serious concerns.
(And, BTW, I am extremely pissed at Cameron for making me defend Assange on anything… can’t you tell?)
Let Assange rot in an embassy for the rest of his life, for all I care… but the day that a First-World Democracy sends into armed men another nation’s embassy is the day that Euro-American civilization, as we currently know it, essentially dies.
Soonergrunt
@liberal: except that he pretty much did, by his own words (assuming that the chat logs are admitted into evidence). The fact that you approve of his actions is utterly irrelevant.
liberal
@Someguy:
Actually, I thought I read something claiming he didn’t do it out of loyalty to Israel, but rather for the money.
Cacti
@Cassidy:
Don’t you know? The accusers are dirty CIA whores.
Good thing “progressives” never indulge in the “bitch had it coming” defense.
Soonergrunt
@Todd: Dude! Be careful. That’s like going in a darkened bathroom and shouting “bloody mary” at the mirror three times. It probably won’t amount to anything, but there’s the slightest chance that she’ll appear, and you’ll look like a fool for trying to bring her forth either way.
Cacti
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God:
Aside from the fact that he’s not being charged with a crime in the US…
Won’t get a fair trial in Sweden? Seriously? It’s kind of sad to see internet “progressives” throw one of the world’s great social democracies under the bus to protect their little tin Jesus, Assange.
Todd
@liberal:
Statements like that make me wish that he were actually subject to cruel and unusual punishment.
Without getting into the notion of his commanders’ wisdom of entrusting a 19 year old with a large volume of sensitive data, one of the things that is expected of men and women in uniform is trustworthiness. His mass release by its very nature had nothing to do with his analysis and assessment of a system or event gone awry (like Ellsberg, like the whistleblowers at My Lai), it was a lark done for personal aggrandizement – his own wishes.
In that way, he is no different than Peltier, Ames or Pollard, and needs harsh punishment as an example to other young men and women as to the seriousness of what they are being entrusted with.
joes527
@Cacti:
It is interesting that the people who make this argument are predominately folks like you.
I may have missed something, but scanning back I see exactly 1 comment out of 150 that seems to trivialize the rape charges.
Cassidy
@Soonergrunt: makoto_chan, makoto_chan, makoto_chan
She was alright sometimes.
Cassidy
@Todd: He released said classified material to a foriegn national. That is espionage.
@joes527: Well, by making stripper contortions to justify him not even answering the charges of rape, you are trivializing them saying that his hypothetical fever dream has more weight than the claims of potential victims of rape. So, yes, you are saying that.
Cacti
@liberal:
Nope.
He heroically disseminated the names, DOBs, and SSNs of military personnel in the field, potentially jeopardizing their lives, and the lives their families.
Let’s get to work building that monument to him.
Todd
@Cacti:
Didn’t you know that Sweden has long been little more than a puppet of American foreign policy? Clearly, it is a national policy there that they are hot to trot to roll over and show their nuggets to Washington.
Cacti
@joes527:
This thread is mercifully free of it for the most part.
Visit an Assange thread at DU(mb) sometime If you want to get the full monty.
joes527
@Cassidy: dude. Those voices that you are lisening to … they are inside your head. There is really no point in replying to them here.
The Tragically Flip
@Cassidy:
They absolutely should, and the process by which that happens starts with any of the following:
1) The United States promises not to seek his extradition.
2) Sweden promises not to send him.
3) The US releases all uncharged/untried prisoners everywhere, promises to accord all future prisoners the rights guaranteed to them in its own fucking constitution (even just the 6th amendment would be a good start).
If Assange committed rape, he deserves to spend some time in a Swedish jail. But he doesn’t deserve a life sentence in Gitmo which is what he’d be risking by giving himself up to Sweden right now.
And the theory that the US might seek to extradite him is pretty damn plausible.
I haven’t even talked about torture. Sure, Obama’s administration doesn’t torture, as far as we know, but torture is now just another policy choice and partisan issue. President Romney can dust off the waterboard and re-authorize the OSC memos if he wants to. Hope you’re not scared of encloses spaces, insects, extreme heat/cold or being made to stand, stay awake or hung by your arms there Julian! So good of you to surrender to Sweden like a good boy.
Assange is not just some guy accused of a sex crime. He is a political target of the world’s most powerful country. He’s acting accordingly and I can’t say I blame him for that.
liberal
@Soonergrunt:
Did you serve in Iraq?
Jack Bauer
The Brits will arrest Assange – at some point. Remember, we arrested Pinochet.
So to Sweden he will go and _then_ we will see about his accused rape and his fate after.
I just want to add to the chorus, anyone who thinks the events unfolding are doing so with _zero_ US pressure is a fool.
liberal
@Cacti:
How would that jeapordize their lives, pray tell?
Cacti
@The Tragically Flip:
Okay.
But will you stipulate to having them all released in your neighborhood?
Steve
@liberal: This is probably true, although the evidence is classified since he never went to trial. The claim is that he shopped the intelligence secrets to several countries in addition to Israel, and only adopted the “I did it for love of Israel” story after the fact as a sympathy ploy. It’s worked quite well insofar to the extent that his goal was to gain sympathy, although it hasn’t worked quite as well in terms of getting himself out of jail.
It’s actually sort of surprising, given the tenor of the Romney campaign, that Romney hasn’t already pledged to free Jonathan Pollard on day one. Perhaps that pledge is coming.
joes527
@Cacti: No thank you. I’ll take your word for it that there is stupid shit on the internet.
Soonergrunt
@liberal: Yes I did. Also Afghanistan. Which facts I’ve been pretty up-front about for years. Along with hundreds of thousands of other people. Which fact is ALSO irrelevant.
liberal
@Soonergrunt:
It’s not at all irrelevant.
Either
(a) you’re a moral agent, in which case you participated in a war of aggression, and hence you’re a war criminal, in which case your pontification re moral issues is a little rich, or
(b) you’re not a moral agent, but rather a paid thug, in which case you should STFU about moral issues.
Cassidy
@The Tragically Flip: Again, no.
1) Why? They may charge him with a crime at a later point. That is the US’s right. But at the moment not hing exists to support that assertion other than Assange’s overblown ego.
2) As has been explained, why should they agree to demands from an alleged rapist to not honor a treaty?
3) This is not apolitical stand on anyone’s part. Assange has been accused of rape. Period. Full stop. Anything else is grandstanding bullshit.
This is all horseshit. If this was a RWinger we were talking about, everyone would be screaming for his head. So, oncea again, how do you assholes justify rape? As long as our guy is doing it? How about children? Is raping children cool as long as it’s done by a liberal? Outsourcing? Genocide? Are we okay with mass shootings and genocide as long as it’s a liberal cause? All these things we think a just and right society stands for, it gets thrown out the window as soon as the person accused is a critic of the US gov’t?
Right now you’re about as principled as Ol’ Mittens and the blue eyed babe. Congratulations.
@joes527: Your defence, based on a hypothetical idea with zero factual support is tacit agreement that rape is okay as long as it’s someone you support. That’s on you.
Cacti
@Soonergrunt:
So, Soonergrunt, would you consider it a threat to your safety or that of your loved ones, if someone published your name, DOB, SSN, and details of your deployments on the internet for common view?
Todd
@Cassidy:
So mote it be…
Amir Khalid
@joes527:
I’ve had a look at this Wikipedia article, which recaps the legal proceedings in England between the Swedish Prosecution Authority and Assange.
The article says that SPA needs Assange in custody for a second round of questioning before it can formally charge him, as Swedish legal procedure requires. I’m not a lawyer; I don’t quite see what “extraordinary process” has been applied to Assange, as you are claiming. Maybe you could enlighten me.
Cacti
@Cassidy:
Unfortunately, yes.
I remember that many were playing apologist for that pig Dominique Strauss-Kahn, because he was a prominent member of a leftist French political party.
Steve
@liberal: Whoa! Instantly I’m sorry I wasted time having a discussion with you. Good God.
Cassidy
@liberal: And you are a dumbass who cheapens terms to suit your own bloviating. It would be sad if it weren’t so pathetic. Continue with your approval of rape, though. That does wonders for your standing.
Todd
@liberal:
Are you sure you’re not the “Jean” character from the first Billy Jack movie? Oh-so-principled, and contorting in a desperate way?
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@Cacti:
Which makes the UK’s actions all the more interesting.
Perhaps read what I wrote. I made no claim one way or the other as to Sweden’s justice system: He claims that. Ecuador apparently believes him, and made their choice. Now it’s up to the diplomats.
You don’t know me at all: I tend to be one of the more hawkish ones here. I despise Assange, who we would never had heard of had he not discovered a certain mentally disturbed PFC (who apparently hadn’t bothered to read his SF86 before signing it).
Not really behind the idea of tearing down the Rule of Law to get to him, however. There has to be another way.
Again: A Man for All Seasons. If the Devil himself deserves the Rule of Law, then scum like Assange must, too.
If not, then it’s worth nothing.
joes527
@Cassidy: You might try tin foil.
Don’t bother with aluminum foil, it won’t help, but a nice tin foil helmet might block the interference that is messing with your reading comprehension.
Amir Khalid
@Amir Khalid:
Sorry, forgot the link.
Cacti
@liberal:
People like you are the reason “liberal” became a pejorative term over the last 30 years.
Cassidy
@joes527: Nothing wrong with my reading comprehension, son. Now your lack of principles and inability to stand on progressive principles in the face of adversity…that’s a problem. You might try some backbone.
Cassidy
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God: Dude, you’re kinda of having a side argument that got lost in the sauce. The UK busting through the Ecadorian Emassy’s door is a bad idea. A hugely bad idea. Unfortunately, that’s not being discussed.
Jack Bauer
@Cacti: DSK was a predatory pig, who was set up.
Cassidy
Says the person defending an alleged rapist because all them bitches should let Jesus Assange get his freedom fuck before a document dump.
The Tragically Flip
@Cacti:
It’s your constitution bub. It’s either means what’s plainly written on it, or it’s just a decorataive historical stand at the Smithsonian. No one said respecting the rule of law was always easy.
Real American
The UN’s Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees–to which Britain, Sweden and Ecuador are signatories–defines who is a refugee and sets out the rights of individuals who are granted asylum.
According to that, a refugee is “[a] person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.”
According to that same convention, asylum and refugee protections do not apply to someone who “has committed a serious non-political crime outside the country of refuge prior to his admission to that country as a refugee.”
Assange is a person of interest in a Swedish rape investigation. None of that has anything to do with his race, religion, nationality, political opinions or membership in a particular social group. However, I would consider rape to be a “serious non-political crime.”
To me, it’s pretty clear that refugee status and international asylum law don’t really apply. That is, unless you’re willing to believe that Sweden is working with the United States to cook up false rape allegations in order to get Assange extradited to Sweden, who will then hand him to the US, who will then persecute him for his political activity. But considering that US has not charged Assange with anything, nor made an extradition request, nor given any indication that they want Assange in their custody, I would say that fear is certainly not “well-founded.” Especially since, as Catsy has repeatedly pointed out, Swedish extradition laws make specific exceptions for people whose extradition would lead to persecution for political reasons, meaning that Sweden would be violating their own laws by handing him to the US in such a scenario.
This is conspiracy-theory-level nonsense. There is no reason to think anything except that Sweden believes Assange may have broken their laws while under their jurisdiction, and thus want to question (and possibly prosecute) him for it.
Ecuador should not have granted Assange asylum without at least some evidence that his fear of persecution by the US is well-founded. Otherwise, they’re helping a person of interest in a rape inquiry avoid investigation by doing nothing more than cooking up conspiracy theories.
Corner Stone
How is exercising the right to request asylum not a part of the legal process?
How is acknowledging a request for asylum the same as saying rape is ok?
Soonergrunt
@liberal: Nice try. Too bad that NOBODY with anything approximating actual authority in any country in the world to do anything agrees with you on any of that.
How many Wehrmacht members did the Allies prosecute, absent specific charges for specific crimes at Nuremburg again?
You’re not very bright, so I’ll spare you the 20 minutes of mis-configured google searches, and I’ll just tell you–zero. Being a member of the armed forces of a nation-state is not, and never has been a crime, regardless of the actions of that nation-state. This was settled law a couple of centuries before either of us was born. Do try to keep up.
Now, if you have specific evidence that I’ve actually violated US or international law, by all means fire away. Finding my actual name shouldn’t be too difficult. I’ll give you a hint–I’m referenced by name, rank, and last four of my SSN, in documents that Assange and his buddies released. Since I’ve never done anything that could remotely be called a war crime by an intelligent, knowledgeable person, I’m pretty sure that I’m in the clear.
Cassidy
@The Tragically Flip:
That’s cute, coming from someone who thinks Sweden’s sovereignty and rule of law don’t count. So, just like progressive proinciples, you’re also deciding which rule of law is okay and which isn’t based on who’s winning your popularity contest?
Cacti
@The Tragically Flip:
You said all uncharged/untried prisoners everywhere.
There are numerous untried prisoners in United States for offenses like racketeering, drug trafficking, kidnapping, money laundering, etc.
Since we you think we ought to be releasing all of them, be a sport and open your arms to them. I’m sure they were all just misunderstood.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@Cassidy:
Fair ’nuff. And it is indeed unfortunate, since (at least to me) that’s the most important issue at hand.
Nobody will remember Assange in 100 years.
People would, however, remember the day that the UK decided to violate basic treaties and core sovereignty just because Ecuador’s a tiny country with no money, no muscle, and no powerful friends.
ericblair
@Soonergrunt:
Well, see, you must have, otherwise St Manning and St Assange would have never released your information, would they? Point, set, match.
And for progressives out there, if you try to protest US military policy by hitching your wagon to the first malcontent who sticks his finger in Uncle Sam’s eye, you’re doing it wrong.
Yutsano
@Soonergrunt: Why didn’t anyone tell me there was gonna be an epic popcorn-worthy thread this morning? I woulda made Rice Krispies treats!
Cassidy
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God: You’re absolutely right. I really hope that they work this out diplomatically. It makes me wonder if someone is itching to use the toys the bought for the Olympics and (thankfully) didn’t have to use.
The Tragically Flip
@Cassidy:
Cassidy
@The Tragically Flip: So again, the hypothetical fever dreams of an egomaniac is more important than respecting the rule of law? So respecting the rule of law, as you’ve claimed, isn’t your purpose here other than to provide rhetorical cover. I don’t know if the man is a rapist. But I do respec tthat the swedish gov’t believes they have soemthing to charge him with. This has nothing to do with politics, but you’re enabling an alleged rapist because he is on your team. So once again, is child rape okay? Mass murder, mass shootings, genocide, female castration, slavery…are these things okay if they are done by someone who’s critique of the US Gov’t mirrors your’s? When are you going to start respecting the rule of law that you claimed is so hard? It must be if you can’t live up to your own lofty rhetoric.
The Tragically Flip
@Cacti:
Are any of them having their 6th amendment rights violated? If so, they should be released. If not, quit hiding in pedantry. It’s obvious I’m not talking about people awaiting trial under the normal course of the US judicial system. There are 100+ people being held in Gitmo, and hundreds more in Bagram whose incarceration could never surivive a 6th Amendment review in an Article III court.
But do go on lecturing Julian Assange how he should respect the rule of law and surrender to face the consequences. You’re ready to shit your pants because some Afghanistani tribesmen might be released within the continential United States, but Assange should man up and willingly risk life in prison (with torture a future possibility) without trial or charges in American custody.
Soonergrunt
@Yutsano: I’m sorry, Brother. Mistermix beat me to the shit-stirring thread of the day. I’ll hold mine until tomorrow, when I post “LGBT people and African Americans and Hispanics hate on each other and it brings down the progressive coalition. Discuss.”
Yutsano
@Soonergrunt: Yer just this much ebil enough to do it too. :)
Todd
Fuck Mumia….
The Tragically Flip
@Cassidy:
1. The United States is currently holding hundreds of human beings without according them any of the civil rights stipulated in its constitution.
2. The United States has tortured people in its custody and reserves the right to do so again at the order of the elected President.
3. The United States has/had a program where government agents go into other countries, kidnap people, stuff them onto planes (with signficant mistreatment like forced application of drugs via suppository), and fly them to still other countries where they can be held indefinitely and mistreated at will.
4. The United States government purposely murdered a US citizen without charges or trial based on secret evidence and without even attempting to apprehend him or even ask him to surrender and face charges.
Do you contest any of these? In what way are Assange’s fears unfounded? Can he prove this is what America intends? No. But the risk is real, it’s happened to many others recently.
You want him to respect the rule of law, start by doing so yourselves.
Ben Franklin
@The Tragically Flip:
It’s fucking bullshit and liberals should not be shitting on people who don’t want to face your kangaroo courts.
One more comment, and I’m done. The pushback from the Authoritarians on Assange is asymmetric in it’s form and content. It’s an emotional cauldron of cognitive dissonance and we should only discuss matters we agree on, like RR and cohort.
The Tragically Flip
I think I’ve said my bit and the arguments are getting repetitive. I’ll close by noting that Sweden actually should rule out extraditing Assange to America because no one should ever be extradited to a country that might not grant due process nor one that might torture that person. The US fails both tests on Assange. Obama’s no-torture orders are well and good, but he won’t be President forever and torture is just a partisan/policy choice right now.
I know in realpolitik terms it’s preposterous to think other nations like little Sweden would treat America like the pariah state it behaves like, but if we’re confining this to legal and moral theory, there’s plenty of reason not to honour their extradition treaty in this case.
Ben Franklin
I lied. Check out the accusers lawyer. There are thousands of lawyers in Sweden, why this guy?
http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2011/01/lawyer-for-assange-accusers-has.html
Cassidy
@The Tragically Flip: Wow, you use a lot of words to say that rape is cool as long as it’s your guy. I didn’t bring up respecting hte rule of law, even when it’s hard. You did. Then you turn around and say fuck the rule of law because of a bunch of shit that has nothing todo with this situation. Sweden wants to charge Assange. They have every right to do that. They also have every right to say go fuck yourself when an alleged criminal makes political demands based on zero, none, nada evidence. But he’ll keep trying it as long as he gets rhetorical cover from people like you. You don’t care about the law and you obviously don’t care about progressive principles. You are a hypocrite.
Cassidy
@The Tragically Flip: You’re an enabling shit. Get the fuck out. As long as it’s your guy, it’s cool. If he was a winger, you’d be demanding the UK and Sweden storm the castle together to bring him in.
Todd
@The Tragically Flip:
Sounds like somebody needs to return to the comfort of a drum circle and giant puppets.
Cry, hippie, cry. Spill your deeply mournful tears of progressive misery, they make a tasty beverage….
Amir Khalid
@Ben Franklin:
The story at your link is talking about Thomas Bodstrom. The lawyer for Assanges’s accusers is named in the Guardian’s blog as Claes Borgstrom. Even if they are indeed from the same firm, are you sure they’re the same guy?
Ben Franklin
@Amir Khalid:
My understanding is they are partners in the same firm. Bodstrom is in US, but I would assume they communicate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bodstr%C3%B6m
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claes_Borgstr%C3%B6m
http://www.aklagare.se/Media/Nyheter/Assange-arendet-fr … /
Ben Franklin
: @Amir Khalid:
Answer stuck moderation….could be because of three links.
They are partners in the same firm.
Soonergrunt
@The Tragically Flip: I’ll handle that.
1)–where, in the Geneva Conventions or any other documents, treaties, or anywhere else is a state that is a belligerent state required to give prisoners captured on the battlefield rights under that state’s civilian justice system except for civil crimes charged while in custody of the holding power? Answer–nowhere. There is no requirement under the laws of armed conflict to give prisoners access to civil courts. They may be held for as long as the conflict continues.
2)–That’s wrong that it happened. It never should have happened, and we should, by rights, prosecute those involved in that to the fullest extent of the law like we used to do. It’s a stain on our national honor that we are now just like everybody else. It’s also a stain on our national honor that we ever tried to compel other countries to go along with it. However, there is no law or legal principle anywhere of which I am aware that says that one may disobey the laws of a country or countries if a third country is having trouble with their own laws, which is what you and Assange are claiming here, vis a’ vis Sweden and Great Britain.
Try to claim that Somalia allows piracy so therefore you should not be held liable for knocking over a convenience store in Germany and see how far that argument gets you.
3–This hasn’t been done to Assange as far as I’m aware. Britain, China, Russia, and lots of countries run intelligence operations in other countries. Sometimes those operations include violating the laws of those other countries. So fucking what? US law is silent about how a person is returned to US jurisdiction. It has zero relevance under US law, including the Constitution that you seem to have read but rather obviously do not understand in context.
4–The individual to whom you are referring was given multiple chances to turn himself in to either US authorities or to third countries. The US government stated that several times. The fact that he placed himself outside of US jurisdiction and the functional jurisdiction of any government that has an extradition treaty with the US, including the government of the country in which he was located, US law was rather irrelevant because there could be no US jurisdiction. But since he was acting as a commander in an enemy organization, and was providing a command and control function to operations that were killing or attempting to kill our citizens, we had every right under international law and US law to kill him (and anyone protecting him) using any means necessary, since it was not possible to compel his surrender. The fact that he had been indicted for a crime is irrelevant to whether or not we could destroy an enemy command and control facility in a war.
And last but not least, it’s Sweden’s decision, properly under the law as to whether or not to grant him asylum from a US indictment and extradition request, if that were to ever happen. All you have done here is to make excuses for why an accused rapist should not face his accusers.
Ben Franklin
Many political activists are accused of crimes by the Law of the Land. Assange, as many of you have mildly asserted, is an alleged rapist. Yet, all the imagined crimes of civil disobedience are ritually swallowed whole, without benefit of circumspection.
Here’s another criminal you might want to throw under the APC.
http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/ii-life-steve-biko
Banning orders are designed severely to restrict the activities and lives of those on whom they are served. Biko was immediately banned from all the organisations with which he had been associated, and he was restricted to King William’s Town for the next five years—that is, he was not permitted to leave the confines of the town. A banned person is also prohibited from being at any meeting, and a meeting takes place as soon as the banned person talks to two people together. This meant that not only could Biko no longer work in the organisations he had helped to found, but he could not meet to have discussions with others. Friends could come to visit him, provided only one person came at a time, and provided they themselves were not banned. (Banned people may not communicate with other banned people.)
Banned people also may not write for publication, nor may anything they say be quoted. There are other restrictions placed on banned people, usually prohibiting them from entering various buildings, such as any court, educational institutions, the offices of newspapers and other publishers, and similar places. Biko was also refused a passport to attend a conference to which he had been invited by the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission in Germany. Life for a banned person is full of tensions and requires constant alertness. The homes of banned people are normally visited frequently by the security police. If Biko were to be in a room with his wife at a time when a friend walked in, he was liable to be arrested for breaking his bans. In fact the banned person must become his own jailer. But because bans require a total withdrawal from all social and political activities, a total retirement from any involvement, many banned people seek ways to work in spite of the difficulties.
patroclus
I think Assange should face the rape charges/investigation in Sweden. I think Ecuador should not have granted asylum. But I don’t think the UK should storm the embassy.
Soonergrunt
@patroclus: “I think Assange should face the rape charges/investigation in Sweden. I think Ecuador should not have granted asylum. But I don’t think the UK should storm the embassy.”
Agree 100%
I also don’t think that the UK will enter the embassy. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so. I do think that Assange will never be able to leave the embassy under any conditions.
And if or when Sweden gets their hands on him, I should hope that they take whatever claims he makes and give him the fullest protections available under Swedish law.
Rita R.
Britain may also be a teensy bit pissed because when Assange went to Ecuador’s embassy to seek asylum he violated the terms of the bail he was granted in 2010 so he could live in cushy comfort in his rich buddy’s country estate while he waged his court battle. The battle, of course, whose results he decided not to abide by when it didn’t go his way. Apparently Assange is a man above men, answerable to no law of any nation but those he feels like abiding by. Mortal man can’t know or understand his righteous genius. And those bitches should be honored to have had a taste of him and just shut up.
Amir Khalid
Okay, fair enough, Bodstrom & Borgstrom are law partners. I see an accusation against Bodstrom, that he let the CIA conduct an extraordinary rendition out of Sweden which led to two men being tortured, but I see no evidence offered one way or the other. And even if it were true, I’m not sure how that links to his law partner influencing an investigation into the allegations against Assange.
Cacti
@Soonergrunt:
I think the UK is mostly peeved that after making full use of the UK court system, and availing himself of due process of law, Assange went skipping off to the Ecuadorian embassy when the court came down with a result he didn’t like.
Such actions are more in line with a scofflaw than a persecuted political refugee.
dogwood
People here defending Assange and Ecuador are laughable. I’ve spent a few months of every year in Ecuador since 2000. The only person with a bigger ego than Assange is Raphael Correa. He is a two-bit demagogue. And if you think Ecuador is a place where the rule of law is respected, you are crazy. I love the place, but it ain’t one of the cradles of democracy. This is a typical attempt by Correa to make himself seem important. Perhaps he is getting ready to rewrite the Ecuadorian constitution again.
Ben Franklin
@Amir Khalid:
And even if it were true, I’m not sure how that links to his law partner influencing an investigation into the allegations against Assange
Oh, there’s no evidence, that we know of. Isn’t that the crux of the discussion? And I made no assertion about his Partner. You asked a question about whether they were one and the same..
jh
I have mixed feelings about this whole Assange thing.
On the one hand, he does come off as a sleazy self-aggrandizing little shit.
On the other hand, his actions and those of Pfc Manning have brought a discomfiting truth the forefront;
If the U.S. government behaves in an unlawful, or morally indefensible manner and chooses to shield itself from accountability by classifying everything associated with the acts in question, how do we, the citizenry hold our government accountable?
I mean honestly, if the U.S. is in fact torturing people and rendering them for torture to client states, what can we do about that?
I’m not sure.
Right now, a citizen of the US can do very little to influence his or her government’s use of force against anyone it chooses. This includes everythign from war and at that it entails, to torture to life imprisonment without charge.
This should bother anyone with a conscience.
Shamefully, it took the actions of flawed individuals like Manning and Assange, neither of which are poster boys for progressive politics, to highlight our horrifying circumstance.
Assange’s legal problems are background noise to this very, very large elephant in the room.
If Sweden were being an honest broker, they would have agreed to question Assange outside their custody, then depending on the outcome of that interview decide whether to formally charge him.
That would defuse a lot of the suspicion about their motives and whether or not the US is pulling the strings.
Corner Stone
This is utterly confounding. If a court case goes against one party they have the right to move their case to another jurisdictional body. It’s called an appeal.
Or are parties that appeal a ruling also scofflaws and engaging in unlawful actions?
And this constant refrain of how “bitches” this and “bitches” that. “Bitches better be lovin’ them some freedom juice!” Sheesh.
When are you thick simples going to get this? Requesting asylum is, in fact, a process of law and the legal system. He didn’t go hide in Uncle Binky’s fucking tree house and put up a “No PoPos” sign on the door. Whatever your personal feelings on asylum/grant of asylum are, that is a legal entity that said, “We agree.”
Fucking ignorant authoritarian assholes.
Amir Khalid
@Ben Franklin:
You pointed out an accusation against Thomas Bodstrom. You imply it is suspicious that his law partner Claes Borgstrom happens to be representing Assange’s accusers. I ask, suspicious how? Are you saying they somehow influenced the investigation that has led the SPA wanting Assange in custody for questioning ahead of formal charges?
Cassidy
@Corner Stone: It’s already been explained to you that you’re wrong, you simpleton. BUt, considering your deep seated misogyny towards women on this blog, I’m not surprised that you’re willing to bend and interpret laws and treaties in unprecedented manner to defend an alleged rapist. Them womenfolk should have just lain back and taken it without complaint, right?
dogwood
People here know absolutely nothing about Ecuador, the Quito government or Raphael Correa.
Corner Stone
@Cassidy: You’re the individual who wants to come to my house and physically assault me. Not only that, as it wouldn’t be satisfying enough for you, you’d prefer to break my orbital bones etc in front of my kid(s). Because that would get you off sexually.
So let’s not play silly buggers about who’s who here champ.
You can keep asserting that following the legal process of sovereign entities is somehow equivalent to cheering on rape, but you will continue to fail.
I hope, for FSM’s sake, you are not legally authorized to carry a firearm as you are a truly disturbed, and disturbing, individual.
Soonergrunt
@dogwood: Perhaps you should do something about that. If you have information that is pertinent to the discussion, then share it.
Cacti
@dogwood:
Speaking of kangaroo courts, Presidente Correa seems awfully fond of using judicial process to jail and fine journalists who say not-nice things about him.
Hooray for freedom and human rights, Ecuadorian style.
Todd
@Amir Khalid:
Clearly, Borgstrom had anticipated Assange’s conduct for many years, setting himself up as a “Take Back the Night” style feminist male in the years prior to the allegations. The CIA is really prescient that way….
Or is this Wiki simply evidence of the CIA conspiracy against Assange, made up of whole cloth?
Ben Franklin
@Amir Khalid:
It’s responsible, to not speculate.
Cacti
Speaking of Presidente Correa, the man who craps freedom and ejaculates human rights…
During the “criminal libel” trial of El Universo’s editorial writers and directors:
Todd
@Amir Khalid:
I think it is mighty suspicious that a young, politically connected, prominent lawyer who had been Defense Minister would find a career after public service as a law partner with a politically connected, prominent lawyer of his same political party, and that they would take on cases involving prominent people.
/snark
Ben Franklin
@Todd:
Lol. Especially a guy who feels he owes all women an apology , just for his maleness.
Rita R.
@Cacti:
You couldn’t possibly be saying that the great crusader for freedom of information is a massive hypocrite who puts saving his ass any way he has to above his deeply-held “principles,” could you? The same man who didn’t seem to care too much when it was his principled and righteous “leaks” that put a lot of other people’s lives in danger? That doesn’t sound like our Julian.
burnspbesq
@Ben Franklin:
No, the real issue is that Julian Assange is credibly accused of serious crimes, and he wants to be above the law. Fuck that.
dogwood
@Soonergrunt:
Oh, give me a break. Defend Assange if you want to, but Ecuador isn’t getting involved in this because it wants to protect freedom. Correa has disolved the legislature, the judiciary and restricted journalists during his tenure. He has re-written the Constitution to benefit himself. I just think it’s laughable that people would see Ecuador as an honest broker in this. But people believe what they want to believe, I guess.
Ben Franklin
@dogwood:
I just think it’s laughable that people would see Ecuador as an honest broker in this.
Who said that?
Cassidy
@Corner Stone: I never said it was sexual. That’s your own fantasy, sport.
@burnspbesq: Bingo. And he has a legion of enablers.
dogwood
@Cacti:
Hey, thanks for posting the information on Correa. I absolutely love Ecuador, but when I saw that Assange was holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy, I had to laugh.
Corner Stone
@burnspbesq:
Wow! Harsh words.
burnspbesq
@Catsy:
And you’re blowing your own credibility to shreds by insisting, in the face of an absolute lack of credible evidence, that there is any such thing as 2).
Amir Khalid
@Todd:
@Ben Franklin:
I asked Ben Franklin why the (unproven) accusation against Thomas Bodstrom made it suspicious that Bodstrom’s law partner Claes Borgstrom was now representing Assange’s accusers. So far, I have not had an answer from you, Ben.
I reckon Borgstrom must have had good grounds to get the investigation reopened, since the prosecutors now believe they have a case against Assange.
burnspbesq
@Corner Stone:
Yup. I know all those words. I just try to be judicious in their use. How you like me now, sport?
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Cassidy: OT, but can you email me at temp0816 at gamejag dot com? I have someone who would like to ask you about the “stress shoots” you mentioned in an earlier thread.
Thanks.
Corner Stone
@burnspbesq: About the same as last time.
burnspbesq
Amir asked why Ecuador would do this. Pure speculation on my part, but I think it’s driven primarily by domestic political considerations. For a would-be caudillo like Correa, there are few objects shinier than a chance to tweak Tio Sam’s nose. I have no doubt that this will goose his approval rating.
Ben Franklin
@Amir Khalid:
Yes you have. You just don’t like the answer. Mebbe you’d like to prove your counterpoint, supportive facts notwithstanding, the notion there is no way there is any CIA connection to the Firm.
I await your rational response.
Ben Franklin
@burnspbesq:
I just try to be judicious in their use.
Jesus H. I feel sorry for any who might face you as a Judge.
Amir Khalid
@Ben Franklin:
I am not asserting that Bodstrom & Borgstrom are not linked to the CIA. I’m not asserting anything about them at all, so I don’t have anything to prove or disprove about them. You, on the other hand, seem to be hinting that they are linked to the CIA. If so, then it’s up to you to make the assertion clearly, and up to you to prove it.
Harry
Lot of authoritarian boot-lickers here for a supposed “progressive” site.
Ben Franklin
@Amir Khalid:
Alllllll righty, then.
Soonergrunt
@dogwood: I’m one of the LAST people you’ll ever find defending Assange for anything.
I honestly meant what I wrote–if you have information that is pertinent, please share it.
Soonergrunt
@Harry: So everyone who doesn’t drink the Assange kool-aide is an authoritarian boot-licker?
Tell me again how you got to be the adjudicator of what constitutes progressiveness. Jane Hamsher, is that you?
Corner Stone
@Harry: Rapist enabler!
Corner Stone
@Soonergrunt:
Oh, mercy me.
Ben Franklin
@Corner Stone:
Hirsute Hamsher. I guess SG will have to answer for his woman-hating like the rapist-trivializer, Ben.
Corner Stone
@Soonergrunt:
“You shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?”
Corner Stone
@Ben Franklin: I just can not tell you how long the word “hirsute” confounded me when I was growing up.
Cacti
@Harry:
True.
It’s a shame to see how many are willing to trash Sweden while polishing the nob of an apprentice dictator like Rafael Correa.
Corner Stone
@Cacti: Wow. You’re kind of like a Bouncing Betty of just really stupid analysis.
Cacti
@Corner Stone:
Hey, whatever makes you feel better about waving your panties at autocrats who grant asylum to accused rapists.
Corner Stone
@Cacti: Every step you take seems to blow up in your stupid fucking face.
That’s what I meant, in case it wasn’t clear to a stupid fucking simpleton such as yourself.
Some people think the rule of law should work its course. Others, like your stupid fucking self, think the people they hate should be thrown down in a pit and bade a “Good day, sir!”.
Whatever your stupid fucking self thinks about asylum? It’s kind of on the books as understood and respected as part of the process.
Spatula
@liberal:
Completely awesome.
Spatula
@Harry:
It’s always been this way at BJ.
Appalling, given that these authoritarians actually consider themselves liberals or progressives, but also part of what makes this blog hilarious and bizarrely entertaining to read.
Ben Franklin
@Spatula:
“False Flag” Progressives
pseudonymous in nc
@Steve:
The Graun, as one of the parties that was given advance access to Wikileaks material, then was subject to Assange’s vitriol after he took umbrage at them, is in a fairly good position to handle this equal-handedly.
Like I said, hard cases = bad law. The treatment of Bradley Manning, held without charge in the brig, bothers me a lot more than that of Assange, who has been able to avail himself of the English legal system, enjoyed a palatial bail hostel, and has fucked over pretty much everybody close to him who has given him support, and whose remaining supporters don’t know him well enough to be fucked over by him. This doesn’t mean that the British government (with William Hague calling the shots here) hasn’t made a shambles of things by waggling its dick at Ecuador.
(I’ll just pause to laugh at Kitchen Implement and his ongoing Dave Spart impersonation. Hahahahahaha.)
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@pseudonymous in nc:
How many times does this nonsense have to be refuted before you understand that, yes indeed, initial charges were made very early on in Manning’s case, but that the UCMJ operates in such a way that official charges aren’t made until after any number of preliminary hearings and examinations?
pseudonymous in nc
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Well, that makes it all right then. Dear me.
portlander
People who think this case has anything to do with rape are only fooling themselves. The charges, regardless of guilt, are simply pretext.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/us-intends-to-chase-assange-cables-show-20120817-24e1l.html