Julian Assange just made matters worse

[Riverwind (imported)]

Moi, you will never understand it, I won't even try but in this case you are wrong, he is not some hero he is a terrorist. One thing I have never been able to figure out is why he has such a hard on for the USA, what did we do to this guy?

But you think its ok for this asshole to publish US secrets, how would you feel if he published your secrets? all of them? And not for the purpose of telling the truth, but just to cause you grief, to make you look bad.

As for the charges of sexual misconduct, that is why they have trials. But your guy is above the law, any law, he only answers to himself and makes his own rules.

The guy is a piece of shit and thats the truth.

River

[moi621 (imported)]

Moi, you will never understand it, I won't even try but in this case you are wrong, he is not some hero he is a terrorist. One thing I have never been able to figure out is why he has such a hard on for the USA, what did we do to this guy?

But you think its ok for this asshole to publish US secrets, how would you feel if he published your secrets? all of them? And not for the purpose of telling the truth, but just to cause you grief, to make you look bad.

River

Please compare to Danial Ellsberg.

If they are analogous then I admire them both.

Thanks.

I respect you feel very differently on the subject. You have been "military" in high subterranean places

and I have not. And you would sacrifice property and life for Freedom when I would probably capitulate for the sake and security of my stuff. But, I am open to persuasion.

So, please, how is Danial Ellberg analogous. Or not.

Moi

[Cainanite (imported)]

Moi, you will never understand it, I won't even try but in this case you are wrong, he is not some hero he is a terrorist. One thing I have never been able to figure out is why he has such a hard on for the USA, what did we do to this guy?

But you think its ok for this asshole to publish US secrets, how would you feel if he published your secrets? all of them? And not for the purpose of telling the truth, but just to cause you grief, to make you look bad.

As for the charges of sexual misconduct, that is why they have trials. But your guy is above the law, any law, he only answers to himself and makes his own rules.

The guy is a piece of shit and thats the truth.

River

Assange has not been charged in either case of sexual misconduct. No charges at all. Unusually, extradition is being sought only so Assange can be questioned. Assange was within his rights to refuse to be questioned until formal charges were made. It was refused. His lawyers offered for Assange to be questioned in London, and that was refused. He offered to go and face questioning, as long as he was given a guarantee he wouldn't be handed over to the Americans, and that too was refused.

This is an unusual case, being handled in a very unusual way by all the authorities involved. They all refuse to make formal charges, but threaten the worst sort of punishments without trial. It is extremely unusual.

If Assange is such a bad guy, why not bring him up on formal charges?

Answer, because like him or not. Agree with him or not, he broke no laws.

The case with the two women is very suspect. That they refuse to offer a guarantee that Assange won't be handed over to the Americans is also suspect.

Assange has offered himself for questioning. He has offered to return to the USA if only charges will be brought.

Why haven't they?

[Peter47-NL (imported)]

Assange has not been charged in either case of sexual misconduct. No charges at all. Unusually, extradition is being sought only so Assange can be questioned. Assange was within his rights to refuse to be questioned until formal charges were made. It was refused. His lawyers offered for Assange to be questioned in London, and that was refused. He offered to go and face questioning, as long as he was given a guarantee he wouldn't be handed over to the Americans, and that too was refused.

This is an unusual case, being handled in a very unusual way by all the authorities involved. They all refuse to make formal charges, but threaten the worst sort of punishments without trial. It is extremely unusual.

If Assange is such a bad guy, why not bring him up on formal charges?

Answer, because like him or not. Agree with him or not, he broke no laws.

The case with the two women is very suspect. That they refuse to offer a guarantee that Assange won't be handed over to the Americans is also suspect.

Assange has offered himself for questioning. He has offered to return to the USA if only charges will be brought.

Why haven't they?

Thanks for your down-to-earth reaction.

[Riverwind (imported)]

So if he is not guilty of anything, why is he hiding and why did he stiff his benefactors, you see nobody likes a guy like Assange.

River

[humlind1 (imported)]

Assange, it is trully a interesting case,

My one belives, are clear. But as people above have sad. Your way of looking at it is collored by your past.

1: Assange, publiched intel, and information. This was sencetive or graded intel.

The problem is that he, gained the intel leagely. So the real question, will be, what made information like this, Being given to a person like Assange.

2: Julian Assange also made pure judgement. by publicing the information he was given.

All freedom of speach give is the right to tell about situations or history or even events, that have been or will happen. Make the public avere of the situation.

But you also have a responsebilety. to protect the way of life, and the best interest of the nation, You have to filter and concider this when you get sencetive or graded information.

3: The charges of rape! some here say BS. Where you there? Sweeden isnt known for making trails that is fake. They are known for dropping way more cases then the one they forwared in the syctem.

That Julian Assange was running from sweeden. Is for me more then a small prove of his guilt.

4. Assange is a Covard, not a person that shoud be concidered a hero. He is a Taker!! and not a giver.

He missuse any trust, given to him. Just for his one benefit.

a: Sencetive info-posted!

b: Rape of 2 girls.

c: Fly from court juctice.

d: Take advantadge of hi friends, by leaving them with the payment from his Bound.

Show me 1 single avidence, where he is putting others before him self.

Show me any example, where hes actions provide a inch of reason to belive he is inocent.

[Cainanite (imported)]

So if he is not guilty of anything, why is he hiding and why did he stiff his benefactors, you see nobody likes a guy like Assange.

River

Never did I say I like the guy. However, just because I think he is a dirtbag, that does not mean I think he should be thrown into Guantanamo Prison without trial, and never again see the light of day.

He is staying in the embassy, because the USA has threatened

to treat him as an enemy combatant, and

punish him without trial and without due process. That is why.

If the USA filed formal charges against Assange, he has already said he would willingly return to the USA to face them. The USA cannot do this, because he committed no crime they can prosecute him on.

Only after Assange refused to hand himself over to US authorities without there even being charges brought against him, suddenly this issue of the two women in Sweden emerged out of nowhere. Though once again, no charges have actually been filed, the Swedish government filed for Assange's extradition, oddly, merely to be questioned. Assange offered to turn himself in if Sweden would guarantee they would not hand him over to the USA. Sweden refused. He offered to be questioned by Swedish authorities in England, and that too was refused. It was then the UK issued an arrest warrant for Assange to comply with the extradition request of the Swedish government. It is that arrest warrant he is guilty of breaking.

So, what are the actual charges against Julian Assange?... None.

What is he avoiding? He is avoiding a government that is known to detain people indefinitely and without charge. Classifying anyone they disagree with as "enemy combatants". This country is known to use torture that is expressly forbidden by the United Nations. This is a country that is known to use a process called "Rendition" to transfer people they don't like to countries that have no human rights for prisoners. This is a country with the highest percentage of prisoners per capita in the world, and exercises the death penalty on its own citizens daily. This country is the USA.

Of course the man is hiding from that. Wouldn't you?

The question is not whether Assange is a good guy or a bad guy. The question is, does the USA have the right to simply ignore the rule of law because they don't like someone?

Other than avoiding his extradition (which is extremely suspect) what crime has he actually been charged with?

Seriously, River. This man merely published papers that were given to him. He exposed corruption and war crimes. He exposed the casual way the USA was treating innocent human lives. He was very careful not to release actionable intel (he didn't give away anything the enemy didn't already know), and he did not endanger American lives. He did this by only releasing documents that were already several years old, and vetted by his legal team to not reveal secrets that would expose current operations. All he did was expose the criminal way the US military was being used in the middle east.

In my opinion, that criminal activity was how the military was being used, not that Assange published papers that pointed that out. If Assange is a traitor, then so were Woodward and Bernstein, when they published the information Deep Throat gave them.

If you want to call Assange a dipshit and an asshole, I am right there with you. If you are calling for him to be tortured without trial, because he acted on his conscience, then I think you should seriously reconsider your position. Even Saddam Hussein got a trial.

Until someone, somewhere, officially charges the man, I think he is right to hide.

[BossTamsin (imported)]

One of the other things in this matter that somewhat bothers me is the rather cavalier manner in which Great Britain has so casually tossed away diplomatic immunity and the whole concept of 'foreign soil' when it comes to Assange. Sure, they haven't yet stormed the embassy, but they have actually talked about it and considered it. Right now, he is a man facing no criminal charges, anywhere. Yet Britain has considered essentially invading a foreign country to arrest him. And they've outright announced that they will invade if he sets foot into a diplomatic car. (As far as I know, diplomatic cars enjoy the same legal protection as the embassy itself, namely, it's foreign soil, legally part of the embassy's country.)

Why can't Sweden perform their investigations via remote conferencing, at least in the preliminary stages? Why can't that be enough to get them the information they need to actually FILE CHARGES and start proceedings? Hell, if that's not good enough, and they're convinced enough of his guilt to get another country to INVADE Ecuador just to detain/arrest him, why can't they file formal charges right now, and deal with interrogating him once he's in custody?

Tell ya what, screw due process, how would you feel if you were holed up in a US embassy somewhere, and the country you were in was talking about storming it just to arrest you, on the basis of a suspicion that you were somehow involved in a crime in a third country? Not that you were involved, not that they had proof, but that they figured you were involved. Plus there were no guarantees in place that if you were taken to this third country for questioning in relation to these alleged crimes, that you wouldn't be shipped to a fourth or fifth country for 'enhanced interrogation', or to be shut into a cell without a trial, never to see the light of day again?

Every single fucking American on this board should be disgusted over this. One of the founding tenets of the whole goddamn country was 'innocent until proven guilty in a court of law'. It doesn't matter what the hell he was accused of. It doesn't matter what the hell you think of him as a person. It doesn't even matter what the hell he actually did. Either press fucking charges against him, let him have his day in court, or leave him the hell alone. To do anything else is to completely violate everything your country is supposed to stand for.

[Dave (imported)]

Assange's fear is that once he sit down in a police station to answer questions they will simply not let him go and they will turn him over to the USA for whatever the USA officials want to do.

That would all be extra-legal and against the legal practices in all countries.

Britain can't detain Assange without looking like tyrants. They ahve no legal cause and the USA has not presented legal papers to Britain.

However, Sweden doesn't care. To Assange, this seems to be a case of rape after the fact, a case of consensual sex that became rape when the woman had second thoughts (not that that is right or justifiable defense, Assange's wandering dick got him in trouble)... If this is the case and Sweden turns him over to the USA without proper charges in the USA (A warrant or a bill of indictments) then Assange's rights have been kicked to the curb and the USA and Sweden are simply stifling dissent without due process.

The USA has not indicted Bradley Manning and yet has imprisoned him in the harshest of environments to break him.

The USA wants to do the same to Assange so no one else dares to embarrass them again.

Remember, no state secrets were revealed in Assange's release of diplomatic crapola. All that shit did was to embarrass the USA.

The punishment for such a non-crime is not life imprisonment...

[A-1 (imported)]

Nope! He should have been shot just like Dr. Gerald Bull (http://www.astronautix.com/articles/abroject.htm)...