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[Ulphus]

But if he's to be extradited to the U.S. at all, at some point he'll have to be charged with something concrete in the U.S. - and I don't see a down side to the Shady American Puppet Masters to doing so now. Then simply demanding his extradition from Britain, go straight to some kind of silly treason charge, do not pass GO, and to hell with risking a messy trial and/or extradition procedure in Sweden.

As I understand it, his claims in court are that he will be extradited from Sweden for things which are not crimes in the UK. If the US and Sweden admitted that ahead of time, then the UK might well not extradite him to Sweden.

If he did get extradited to the US, then it's possible he'd end up in a jail for a very long time before they got around to putting him on trial, and that's likely to be no fun at all.

Of course, the US and Sweden both deny this, and there doesn't seem to be much solid evidence that this is the case, just a lot of speculation. It does rather seem that Mr Assange really fears that this is the case though.

As to the cases in Sweden, it appears that Mr Assange was being a first order dick, refusing reasonable requests to not have sex without a condom, and refusing to stop when one broke. I can imagine the women in question were quite put out about it. I'm not entirely sure that it rises to the level of criminality, though it very well might.

If it is criminal, then prosecuting is a reasonable thing to do, but I'm pretty sure that often worse isn't prosecuted, which is why the trouble to try to extradite Assange strikes some people as politically (or perhaps US) motivated.

[Silas Vitalia]

But if he's to be extradited to the U.S. at all, at some point he'll have to be charged with something concrete in the U.S. - and I don't see a down side to the Shady American Puppet Masters to doing so now. Then simply demanding his extradition from Britain, go straight to some kind of silly treason charge, do not pass GO, and to hell with risking a messy trial and/or extradition procedure in Sweden.

Which particular shady american puppet masters are you referring to?

[Silas Vitalia]

As to the cases in Sweden, it appears that Mr Assange was being a first order dick, refusing reasonable requests to not have sex without a condom, and refusing to stop when one broke. I can imagine the women in question were quite put out about it. I'm not entirely sure that it rises to the level of criminality, though it very well might.

This is indeed a crime of a serious nature. If consent is removed for the act taking place and the act does not stop, it is sexual assault, which carries a rather lengthy prison term in many countries.

No means No. Not 'maybe.'

[Seriphyn]

Come on now, you guys honestly don't buy the Swedish allegations do you?

It's like everyone conveniently seems to forget this guy was, you know, responsible for a major embarrassment of the United States government, and that people in the US want him assassinated/tried for terrorism. They have deliberately picked a very sensitive issue here (rape/sexual assault), so that anyone who says otherwise is obviously a chauvinist and an endorser of female abuse. It's smoke-and-mirrors 101.

It's an absolutely pisspoor and abysmal job to try and make everyone suddenly pipe down and shut up about the fact he leaked all that information, because he's an ebil, ebil rapist. At least here in Britain, very few people are buying that.

Which particular shady american puppet masters are you referring to?

With respect, it appears very common for those within the United States to seem uninformed of how the rest of the world views Washington's treatment of everyone else. The fact many countries are basically client states, and how everyone else has to use the Internet according to US rules is very excruciating for many, and most Americans don't seem to emphasize with how its like to be "the rest of the world" before the world's only superpower. This is a more holistic/structural problem than resting on the individual citizen.

[Silas Vitalia]

Come on now, you guys honestly don't buy the Swedish allegations do you?

It's like everyone conveniently seems to forget this guy was, you know, responsible for a major embarrassment of the United States government, and that people in the US want him assassinated/tried for terrorism. They have deliberately picked a very sensitive issue here (rape/sexual assault), so that anyone who says otherwise is obviously a chauvinist and an endorser of female abuse. It's smoke-and-mirrors 101.

It's an absolutely pisspoor and abysmal job to try and make everyone suddenly pipe down and shut up about the fact he leaked all that information, because he's an ebil, ebil rapist. At least here in Britain, very few people are buying that.

Which particular shady american puppet masters are you referring to?

With respect, it appears very common for those within the United States to seem uninformed of how the rest of the world views Washington's treatment of everyone else. The fact many countries are basically client states, and how everyone else has to use the Internet according to US rules is very excruciating for many, and most Americans don't seem to emphasize with how its like to be "the rest of the world" before the world's only superpower. This is a more holistic/structural problem than resting on the individual citizen.

Not disagreeing with your viewpoint, I was legitimately asking for specifics as to whom he thinks pulling strings, etc

[Silas Vitalia]

Also interested what level of tinfoil hattery we are at as well

[Seriphyn]

<_<

Oh, well, er...the...cabal of special interests and corporate CEOs...or something.

I think that would just be deferred to the general combined force/construct of Washington (same in the UK). Not any specific person, or group.

[Tiberious Thessalonia]

I never take my tinfoil hat off.  I have my copy of the "Illuminatus" trilogy sitting ^fnord on my bookshelf at all times, and listen to the local conspiracy guy on the radio when I can on Saturday nights so that _fnord I can tell what the moon-worshipping and sun-worshipping variants of the fnord illuminati are up to in their eternal battle to control the world.

[Ulphus]

Silas was replying to me, (not Jev North) when she wrote:

This is indeed a crime of a serious nature. If consent is removed for the act taking place and the act does not stop, it is sexual assault, which carries a rather lengthy prison term in many countries.

No means No. Not 'maybe.'

I personally agree that "no means no". I'm also aware that people are messy creatures, with fumbling around in the dark, misunderstandings, different assumptions, not talking about certain things etc. As I understand it, these encounters started as consensual. The point at which Mr Assange realised that consent had been withdrawn is somewhat relevant to whether it was a crime, and I'm under the impression he didn't realise there was a problem until later.

That could be because the women convinced themselves it was a problem later after discovering he'd been bonking someone else (which was one allegation I saw), or it could be because Mr Assange is a Narcissist who doesn't give a shit about anyone else's feelings (another allegation I've seen) and just didn't believe she'd withdrawn consent or that she could object to his obvious charm.

My point is I can imagine many different ways this could have happened, some of which leave Mr Assange as a sex criminal, some of which make him an insensitive arsehole, and some of which make him someone who's expectations in bed were from a different culture to his sexual partners which caused all sorts of misunderstandings.

Which is why I'm not 100% convinced that what happened was criminal, though I believe it very well might be. More facts (which I'm not really entitled to, nor do I expect to get) might convince me one way or the other.

I don't understand the Swedish legal system, so I'm not sure why they were trying to extradite him without having charged him, but had they agreed to question him by video conference, or even sending a cop/prosecutor over to the UK to talk to him, and then decided to charge him, I'd have had a lot more sympathy for their extradition request. (But as I said, that could be because I'm missing something obvious about their legal system).

[Tiberious Thessalonia]

It should be noted that Julian Assange said that he would be happy to talk to the swedish prosecutors through many different methods, up to and including talking with police from his house arrest, but they did insist on having him in Sweden for the questioning.  That's apparently part of what led him to believe that they were not negotiating in good faith.

[Jade Constantine]

I'm pretty ashamed about the British Government's pathetically cowardly stance in all this. If there's going to be a decent demo in support of the Ecuadorian decision on this I'll probably go and march with them.


 

[Seriphyn]

Ulphus, same to you maaan! If the UK defies a centuries-old treaty and revokes the Ecuador embassy's diplomatic immunity just to get a guy based on mere rape/sexual assault charges, then it definitely has everything to do with how forces in the US want him dead. It sets a precedent for any embassy being raided by the host country for anything.

That's a major uproot of the international system for something on a minute scale...but then, I believe it has nothing to do with that minute charge, just because of how disproportionate that potential action by the UK is.

[Silas Vitalia]

I should state that this 'sexual assault' thing is obviously, obviously just a means to get him extradited to the United States, and I don't think anyone should be the slightest bit surprised by this.

This has nothing to do with his guilt or innocence, it's just the most expedient method and angle of approach the US authorities are pursuing.

To give more of what I'd perceive an our general "American" point of view on this, is that the general public is quite alright with all manor of whistle-blowing and fighting injustice, etc, but we have a few 'sacred cows' in the public discourse that get special treatment (or collective myopia depending on your politics) and the military is one of them. In other words releasing internal memos from some politician is questionable or perhaps partisan but releasing classified military documents will get you a quick trip to the bottom end of public opinion from nearly all members of the Republic.

[Jade Constantine]

As to the cases in Sweden, it appears that Mr Assange was being a first order dick, refusing reasonable requests to not have sex without a condom, and refusing to stop when one broke. I can imagine the women in question were quite put out about it. I'm not entirely sure that it rises to the level of criminality, though it very well might.

This is indeed a crime of a serious nature. If consent is removed for the act taking place and the act does not stop, it is sexual assault, which carries a rather lengthy prison term in many countries.

No means No. Not 'maybe.'

Depends if it then becomes something one thinks about the following day. Oh you didn't use a condom last night? That's "sexual assault!" I think we need to get serious here - there is no allegation that these girls didn't consent to sex - if there was some technicality about broken condoms mid act then bloody hell its slim issue.

But the real point here - the fucking huge point in all this is IF it was all about a technical sexual assault in Sweden then I can see absolutely no reason why the Swedish authorities wouldn't agree to question the man on neutral ground to get the matter resolved and see if they wanted to actually make a legal charge.

All this demanding he go to Sweden while the suspicion exists that USA is going to sweep in an extradite him on other murkier charges just feeds into the conspiracy fears (and makes it look like a dirty political conspiracy not anything to do with young women being sexually assaulted by broken condoms.)

[Silas Vitalia]

I don't think it's 'conspiracy theory' so much as the obvious intent of some of our authorities to have him sit in jail for the rest of his life.

The government wants to say loud and in a crystal clear voice 'down with this sort of thing' Do not fuck with this particular issue or we will come pull you out of wherever you are anywhere in the world and your life as you know it will be over'