Wikileaks Infodump Volume 2: Various unspecified US misdeeds

He, frankly, has a lot more politically powerful friends in Sweden. The people who have stood up for him here are at best minor celebrities.

And I’m not talking about the American reaction, but the Swedish one…heck EU reaction. He has allies in the EU Parliament for frick sake. Dozens of them. They might not be able to intervene in internal EU matters (and bluntly quite a few of them have said it’s none of their business), but kidnapping by an outside country could VERY easily taken down the Swedish government, and probably badly damage the US-UK relationship too, given the tension there of late.

Assange has done great work, but in terms of his personality he’s got some great big flaws. “Paranoid narcissist” about covers it. What makes it worse is that there’s all this fame and notoriety to fan the flames of his narcissism and a great deal of real danger from real arseholes who want to kill him to do the same to his paranoia. Fleeing Swedish justice seems like a dumb move but I reckon it’s a lot easier to make smart choices when you’re not the poor bastard in the centre of a shitstorm, is what I’m saying.

If he wants to go from world famous to vanished from the face of the Earth, he should try to contact Dave Chappelle, the man got it down to a science.

How is it political suicide to legally extradict someone? If the carry on over the rape claims wasn’t political suicide, I don’t see how extradicting him would be. And again, by all accounts, the judiciary and legal apparatus are much more independent and separate in the UK.

Also, if he has such powerful friends in Sweden how did it ever get this far? Bit of a non sequitir to claim he has more influence in Sweden then UK when its Sweden trying to nab him over what appears to be trumped up politically motivated claims from extremely suspect and untrustworthy ‘victims’.

Because, bluntly, the sex charges are something a lot of them feel he should answer. If they’re suspect, that can be introduced in evidence.

He needs to go through the legal process for the sexual assault charges against him. Its not fair to deny his accusers justice if he is guilty of this. If there is no proof of the charges that should come out in court. Running and hiding from the judicial process never looks good for the person accused of the crime.

Do you agree that Bush 2, Rumsfeld, Cheney et al should all face the legal process in the ICC for their crimes against peace and crimes against humanity? Or should they be allowed to evade the legal process?

The trail is too cold now. There was a window of opportunity for all these guys, but most of the evidence (paper trails etc) will have been destroyed now. And also you can not hold an American president guilty in a court of law for any resultant concerns about his choices while president (or something along those lines). I think it is the same for a Prime Minister in the uk? So yeah those people got big ‘get out of jail’ cards sadly.

De facto, no powerful American politician will ever be punished for their crimes, because the institutions of international law are too weak. But de jure, the laws broken by Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld &c are “jus cogens” and cannot be superseded by any other legislative authority. You can’t make torture, for example, legitimate just by voting for it. See:

http://www.sharedhumanity.org/LibraryArticle.php?heading=Jus%20Cogens

Hilarious. Any concept of behaviour being illegal is subject to change. A “norm” of international law is what the largest group of nations with the most power, be it military or economic, say it is. Anyone who thinks different is a dreamer.

A view which completely ignores it’s history. From Middle-Ages Universalism to Classic Legalism to, yes, the power-based system of 1815-1919. Between WWI and WWII, there was again a very strong period of legalism. Even though it’s been eroded, many of the mechanisms survive.

In short, might makes right. It’s fortunate that - as Socrates says to Callicles - the dreamers who think otherwise are collectively mightier than those who actively wish to put this way of thinking into practice. There is a distinction between the de facto and the de jure, but to collapse that distinction would make the world a far, far worse place.

Not really. The problem is that you can pass all the international law you want but in the end it comes down to enforcement. And what gets enforced is what the powerful countries want to enforce while everything else is ignored either because nobody cares or nobody is willing to make an issue of it. The post-WW2 war crime trials are perfect examples of this, with the losing nations facing charges on things both sides broke internatial agreements on, like submarine warfare.*

*As an aside, many allied military leaders quiety opposed holding axis military officers accountable for international law violations they themselves had also broken. So at least you can say they understood how absurd the whole thing was. But the politicians and legal experts ignored them.

Expert legal opinion is seldom even one of the three.

Yes, quite familiar with that argument…

My answer is usually the to point out the Eichman trial. Eichman in Jerusalem, if you’re aware of the context. (Ceserani’s Becoming Eichmann is a fairly good foil if you’re not, but there’s also Arendt’s outright racism against the Sephardi, something which was rare even at the time)

It already is. It’s just not played out so obviously.

Julian keeps going:

‘Wikileaks publishes 1.7m US diplomatic records’:

There are links in the article and i recommend you only go to them through a proxy, this is the world in which Gitmo, Illegal rendition etc took place without much trouble.

A proxy? They arent classified documents this time, no-one leaked them. Wikileaks just made them searchable in a database, which is very cool in its own way.

Speaking of, Julian was giving interviews shortly after the diplomatic cable dump that wikileaks was preparing another dump that could “take down a couple of banks”. Being a hater of modern banks, ive been waiting for this for a long time. Where is it? Even though Julian is arrogant, ive never known him to boast about things wikileaks never actually had.

Last thing to mention, wikileaks has set up a political party in Australia and Julian wants to run for a senate seat in Victoria later this year.

I could have sworn we had a specific ‘Julian Assange’ thread? Anyway this will have to become the new one for news about him:

‘Britain unmoved by Ecuadorian request to give Julian Assange ‘safe passage’ for MRI scan’:

Ecuador has requested that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange be allowed “safe passage” out of the country’s London embassy to a hospital for a medical examination.

Ecuador’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday it had made the request so that Assange, who has been living for 40 months inside its London embassy, could undergo an MRI scan to investigate pain in his shoulder. At present, he faces arrest if he leaves the embassy.

“We did ask the British government for a safe passage for humanitarian reasons in coordination with Ecuador, so that Julian Assange can get an MRI,” the foreign minister, Ricardo Patiño, told a briefing in Quito.

“The reply we have had from Britain is that he can leave whenever he likes for any medical care he might need but the European arrest warrant for Assange is still valid. In other words, he can leave – and we will put him in jail,” Patiño added.

The WikiLeaks founder, an Australian national, sought political asylum at the embassy in June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden, where prosecutors want to question him over rape allegations. In August they dropped their investigation into two other claims – one of sexual molestation and one of unlawful coercion – because they ran out of time to question him.

The development comes after Scotland Yard called off its multimillion-pound 24-hour surveillance of the embassy earlier this week, having decided the operation was “no longer proportionate”.

The Foreign Office said in a statement on Wednesday night: “The Ecuadorian government have informed us that Mr Assange requires a medical assessment.

“There is no question that the British authorities would in any way seek to impede Mr Assange receiving medical advice or care. We have made this clear to the govt of Ecuador.”

Asked if Assange would be arrested if he left the embassy to visit a hospital a Foreign Office spokesperson said that it was a matter for the police.

Speaking earlier on Wednesday on Ecuadorian TV, Patiño said Britain should grant Assange safe passage so he could leave the embassy.

He added that the British authorities should make this gesture so Assange “can benefit from the right of asylum that we have granted him, as should be done in a respectful international relationship”.

The WikiLeaks Twitter account linked to a statement saying that the source of the shoulder pain being experienced by Assange could only be diagnosed with hospital equipment that could not be brought into the embassy due to size and weight.

Julian Assange is even more insane than we all thought.

The list is massive and bonkers.