Summary: Never say the US government can’t accomplish anything! Julian Assange of Wikileaks has been smeared with dubious (at best) charges and trapped in Equador’s embassy for the past 5 years by the Swedish and British governments. Coincidence or mission accomplished? Review the story and decide.
“A just city should favor justice and the just, hate tyranny and injustice, and give them both their just desserts.”
— Al-Farabi (aka Alpharabius), Islamic philosopher and scientist (872-950).
The Swedish government closed the flimsy investigation of sexual assault as the the statute of limitations runs out. The limit on the obviously bogus rape investigation has 5 more years to run.
Both Sweden and Britain refused to guarantee that they would not extradite Assange to the United State — to receive the kangaroo court justice typical of our national security cases.
Assange sought refuge in Equador’s London embassy. They granted him a well-deserved political asylum on 19 July 2012. Since then Britain has spent over $17 million to keep Julian Assange from escaping from the Ecuadorian Embassy. No price is too great for UK taxpayers to pay when serving the needs of the USA! Britain intends to whine about this to Ecuador.
The Swedish government says that their investigation requires an interview with Assange, but they refuses to interview Assange in London. The Guardian describes their sorry excuses and stalling…
For more than four years Ny refused to go to London to interview Assange, but changed her mind in March after a Swedish court questioned her failure to make progress in the investigation.
… But it was June before the Swedish government made an official request to Ecuador to enter the embassy, and an agreed date to begin interrogation a week later had to be scrapped. After a tense standoff in which each side blamed the other for delays, this week they agreed to formal talks over judicial cooperation, potentially breaking the deadlock – but not in time to prevent the time limit on most of the accusations running out.
… Assange said: “She has managed to avoid hearing my side of the story entirely. This is beyond incompetence. I am strong but the cost to my family is unacceptable.”
Britain’s Foreign Minister Hugo Swir plans to a formal whine to the Ecuadorian government. “Ecuador must recognise that its decision to harbour Mr Assange more than three years ago has prevented the proper course of justice.”
Conclusion
“Just out of curiosity, is there any evidence that Assange would be extradited to the US if he went to Sweden?”
— Journalist Michael Cohen @speechboy71 in 2012. Like many US journalists, he’s a loyal supporter of the deep state. See more evidence here, and more recent here.
It is possible that these events have happened with little or no intervention from the US. If so, we should send our senior intel officials to Vegas. The winnings from such lucky people could balance the budget.
Why Assange wants to avoid US “justice”
The US Army tortured Bradley Manning (now Chelsea) for months before the trial. Now they’re mistreating him in prison, presumably as an example to others.
For More Information
“Sex, Lies and Julian Assange” — Investigative journalism at its best by Andrew Fowler and Wayne Harley of the Australia Broadcasting Corp, 23 July 2012 (video and transcript). Also see Assange in Sweden: The Police Protocol, with testimony of the 3 proponents and statements by 9 witnesses. I doubt anyone with an open mind will believe the charges against Assange after reading these.
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about Wikileaks, and about Juliana Assange, especially these…
- Using covert operations to discredit your enemies.
- Endgame for the affair Assange: a big win for the government, 27 September 2010
- The US government successfully smears Wikileaks, while America sleeps,
- The Affair Assange rips off the veil concealing the face of modern journalism.
Country name is ‘Ecuador’. The ‘equator’ is an imaginary line that bisects the earth.
Elatahualpa,
Thanks for catching that! Too much reliance on spell-checkers.
I am certainly no supporter of Assange’s treatment by all concerned, however, he also without any question arrogantly and egotistically endangered if not worse many folks’ lives….he was or considered himself at the time the supreme moral arbiter of the greater good….I have never seen any remorse from him about this or even a thought that there might, just might have been some downside for some individuals in his actions….he may and probably has been mistreated but he was and remains the worst kind of moral prig in my book
Rick,
“he also without any question arrogantly and egotistically endangered if not worse many folks’ lives”
Your basis for that claim? The government has made that claim endless — and always backed down when called on to provide specifics.
So it doesn’t bother you that governments have been hiding so much from you.
But of course, governments are there to protect you.
We must trust them. They are not doing anything immoral or such…
Ecuador is the Spanish word that alludes to that concept of the imaginary line that divides the earth in northern/southern hemisphere too. So the country is actually named after the Equator.
It’s just that they didnt think using the English word for the concept was the best move.
:)
Julian Assange and Edward Snowden are true patriots.
Greg,
I’ve wanted to write a post explaining that the whistleblowers are among our time’s greatest patriots. Without them, with Snowden and Manning in the first tier, we would know far less about what our government was doing. There would be rumors and fragments of information, but most would believe the government’s denials.
My concluding question: how much would America differ if we hadn’t learned these things? My conclusion: not much. It was too depressing to write.
FM Editor:
Yes I get depresses thinking about it also but… I think you underestimate what Snowden and others have accomplished. They didn’t unleash an obvious revolution but they woke many people up from their government inspired slumbers. It had been a subtle effect but nonetheless true. I am proof of this.
Greg,
I agree. But understand makes no difference unless people put it to action. I don’t see that. Certainly the comments here, a small slice of life, show nothing positive. Nor do polls. As for the election….
Great job of blaming the victim by Rick Olimba. It’s crucial, when studying the operation of America’s quasi-totalitarian miltary-police-prison-surveillence-torture complex, never to focus attention on the people being crushed or the undeclared martial law oppression that shuts down dissent and hides information of government crimes. Instead, the central focus of all discussions about the military-police-surveillance complex must be the tone of voice of the dissenters.
Source: “How Noam Chomsky is discussed,” Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian, 23 March 2013.
I think that the revelations by Snowdon, Manning, and others have confirmed a lot of our worst fears. I’m thinking of Obama’ flippant comment that ‘Your government isn’t monitoring your computer’ implying that people who think that it is are paranoid nuts. Well, it REALLY can do that and more. Or that two psychologists made $180 million for inventing better methods of torture. (Heinrich Himmler would have been appalled by this profiteering.)
There are no moral limits now, as Orwell remarked about “the stony cruelty of antiquity” in pre-Christian Rome.
There are also no neutral countries now. Sweden and Switzerland had preserved their neutrality for hundreds of years, now they are just lackeys.
Social Bill,
I agree. So much of what we know is due to whistleblowers. We owe them a great debt, and have repaid them with persecution and public disdain.
“Sweden and Switzerland had preserved their neutrality”
Have the Swiss done anything to break their neutrality? As for Sweden, they were almost allies of NAZI Germany; I have never understood their holier-then-thou attitude.
Like the prophets of old. Those men often met ignoble ends. But in the end those unsung heroes should have our undying gratitude.
For the Swiss they allowed the FBI to arrest a few corrupt soccer officials. I agree that the Swedes were grating during the Vietnam war. (Part of me likes to see them humiliated.
SocialBill,
Being “neutral” in the usual sense does not mean preventing extradition.