Arrested in his absenceposted by scalefree at 6:18 AM on August 21, 2010
The Swedish Prosecution Authority can confirm that Julian Assange has been arrested in his absence, but not yet apprehended.
The allegations are molestation and rape. Assange is arrested in his absence due to the risk of complicating the investigation, i.e. removing or destroying evidence.
Due to the nature of the suspicions no further details can be confirmed at the moment.
If more information will be available it will be published during the week end on this web site.
According to Expressen sources, the two women have come to the police in Stockholm yesterday to consult about their experiences with Assange, but shall not have wanted to report him. The reason why it should have been that they should have been afraid Assanges power.Or maybe because they didn't want it all to blow up in their faces? Falsely reporting a rape is a crime in Sweden. For whatever reason the prosecutor did something the victims didn't want him to do. Of course this is early hours and the reporting could be highly distorted in other ways.
I mean for fuck's sake let's ignore this very thread right here where sight unseen and story untold the "sluts" have been determined to be "hookers" in the employ of the CImotherfuckingA.You know, it's worth noting that the only person who said anything about "sluts" was someone who was making fun of people suspicious of the story. It's just as fair to say that you, sigh unseen, have called me a Nazi.
I wish you were right on this one, but people who think they are doing extremely important work far too often believe the rules don't apply to them. From Elliot Spitzer to Thomas Jefferson -- allen.spauldingThere is a huge difference between raping someone and having consensual sex which was the case with Spitzer. With Jefferson, I'm not sure what you're getting at. He was a womanizer but this was the late 1700s. The risks for that kind of behavior -- at least for the rich and powerful just weren't there. Aside from getting syphilis, of course.
Instead of concocting a fake rape charge, wouldn't it be easier for the spooks to concoct a fake car crash or a fake suicide? -- afx237viYeah, but come on. Everyone would assume he was murdered. Assange the individual is not the problem. Destroying him as a person doesn't help anything. Destroying his character is what counts.
Just saw the title of this post. "Dirty tricks" is apparently the default for male computer nerds on the internet. Disgusting and utterly misogynic. Like famous men on power trips are totally unheard of. No, the sluts are in CIA's pocket amirite? -- mr.marxYes, we all know if you don't believe the alleged victim automatically, you're a total misogynist! No one ever fakes rape charges. And it's not like the CIA ever uses sex to fuck with people or anything.
Only if they knew when he was in a very specific location...and he protects himself against that very well. -- hal_c_onI doubt the world's governments have that much trouble tracking him.
Perhaps if they operated more like 4chan's Anonymous wikileaks could survive something like this if he gets convicted. -- mathoweSo wikileaks should just embrace child porn?
Obviously nobody (well, nobody rational anyway) can say whether the charges are true at all right now, but the reflexive defense and calls of conspiracy remind me of the whole Hans Reiser thing.In the sense that it's a case of a geek-of-some-flavor accused of a crime, yeah. In the case of Hans Reiser, though, there was no existing narrative that explained why someone would frame him for anything. Maybe someone who really, REALLY liked HFS wanted him "out of the way?"
Blagovich was framed, too, right? The CIA is in my closet, monitoring my cat food intake.Stop calling me a Nazi.
I'M REPOSTING THIS COMMENT BECAUSE I AM CURRENTLY SEARCHING THE INTERNET AND I CANNOT FIND A SINGLE SITE THAT CONSIDERS THIS A POSSIBILITY -- Bathtub BobsledSo what? I think it's really unlikely. If the Chinese (or whoever) wanted that file released, they'd just kill Assange. And anyway, maybe he put incriminating stuff on a broad swath of governments in the file. I think it's really unlikely.
Hell, perhaps he started WikiLeaks just so that he could rape women and blame the CIA!That seems like a lot of work.
Swedish prosecutors on Saturday withdrew an arrest warrant for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, saying the rape allegations it was based on is unfounded.posted by Pope Guilty at 8:38 AM on August 21, 2010 [7 favorites]
SvD is normally conservative concerning the publication of the name and photo of accused persons. But when one of the world's currently most talked about people has an arrest warrant issued for suspicion of rape, it is unreasonable to not report on that.The actual statement is at the link above. The reasoning doesn't hold much water to me personally, but I checked whether the Pirate Bay founders were also named in the Swedish press prior to conviction because that was the last really high-profile case in Sweden. They were named, though it doesn't seem they were often unnamed in reporting. So there seems to be a double standard concerning the privacy of internet heroes brought low.
On the bright side, in a year's time if you still think he's innocent you'll be a crazy truther and no one will pay attention to anything you say.
…
This kind of evidence-free conspiracy nutjobbery is what is behind the birther movement, the 9/11 inside job, and general UFO conspiracies.
“The Swedish tabloid Aftonblade has an interview with one of Assange's two accusers, an unidentified 30-year-old woman. She tells Aftonblade that the other alleged victim contacted her about an incident with Assange, and the two went to the police together last week. The accusations are ‘sexual assault or molestation’ in her case, and rape in the case of the other woman. (The rape accusations were declared ‘unfounded’ by the police.) If you'll excuse the Google translate, this is from Aftonblade:posted by ericb at 9:39 AM on August 21, 2010Women and Assange met during his stay in Stockholm and had not previously seen either him or each other.The woman says that at first the sex was consensual, but turned non-consensual in both cases. She also refutes the idea that the Pentagon or any of Assange's detractors are behind the accusations:
The woman in her 30s said that she, for her part claims to be a victim of a sexual assault or molestation, but not a rape.
The origins of the police report came in last Friday. Another woman approached her and told a similar, but worse story. The woman is between 20 and 30.The charges against Assange are of course not orchestrated by either the Pentagon or another. The responsibility for what happened to me and the other girl is in a man with skew kvinnosyn problems and to take no for an answer.Fun fact: Aftonblade is the Swedish tabloid which recently tapped Assange to write a bimonthly column. Something tells us this deal is off.” *
Also: wouldn't the CIA have been able to make these charges stick? This is some 3 Dimensional space chess shit right here.Maybe it was just some freelancers. I could imagine some blackwater type guys thinking they could pull something like this off on their own. Or something. Just because
I mean, if you publicly name a rape suspect - when such things are usually not done, even if the suspect is famous - and then have to withdraw your charges less than 24 hours later, you've really screwed the pooch, haven't you. Seems like the kind of huge, costly mistake that might get someone fired. [At least in America. Don't know about them crazy socialists.]Are you being sarcastic? Prosecutors get away with just about everything in the U.S. The prosecutors in the Ted Stevens case deliberately hid exculpatory evidence, but they weren't fired as far as I know.
US government officials have publicly called for his assassinationYou're correct, and I was mistaken. Congressman Mike Rogers of Michigan said that the person who leaked the information to Assagne should be killed, not Assagne himself. The Washington Post published an editorial calling for Assanges' assassination and the cry was taken up by bottom-rung conservatives.
US government officials? Please provide names and exact quotes. I'm pretty sure that no us government official has called for Assange's assassination.
Polanski admitted to the conduct in question and has never denied that he slept with a 14 year-old girl after plying her with drugs and wine. He just argues that he had a plea deal that never existed.gawdfracking DAMN IT THIS!
Dude admitted the conduct under oath.
posted by Ironmouth at 12:37 PM on August 21
And things get weirder - the Swedish chief prosecutor appears to have dropped the rape charge against Assange.This changes everything.
Okay, sure. The subject of this thread is a man dodgily accused of rape. Remember that? Great. So your 'concern' is a glaringly obvious derail from the glaringly obvious issue at hand: an organization and a person a lot of serious people take seriously has just had a very scary taste of how easy it is become a rapist in the minds of way too many people at once.I don't think it's unreasonable to say that at a broad societal level, making sure that rape charges are taken seriously -- and that withdrawing a charge of rape isn't a life-destroying incident -- is important. Very important.
Check out Colbert calling him out.I'm... pretty sure that doesn't mean what you think it means.
It means exactly what it means. Watch the fucking clip. He called him out for editing that video and not showing the entire thing and calling it "collateral murder" instead of letting people make up their own mind.Let's quote Stephen Colbert in that video: "Look, if we don't know what the goverment is doing, we can't be sad! Why are you trying to make me sad?" It's fair to say that he is a television personality known for taking positions and making statements intended to be absurd.
He points out all of the stuff that Assange left out. Assange had to admit it.The only thing Assange "admitted" was that he did, indeed, title the video "Collateral Murder." In the clip you linked to, both he and Colbert take as a given that the full unedited video is available to anyone who cares to watch it, that the things Assange says happened in it did happen, and that the only objection is the naming of the video "Collateral Murder."
Either your a leaker or an activist. But you can't pretend to be interested the exposure of truth if you can't tell it yourself.If you want to argue that Julian Assange is lying, you're really going to have to find a better example than "He gave a video a title that some people didn't like."
You really think "absurd" is all Colbert does?No, I'm just pointing out that Stephen Colbert saying, "You've manipulated people's emotions! You gave the video a title!" is not as unambiguous as, say, Ted Koppel doing it. Colbert frequently agrees with people to make them look foolish, criticizes them to parody their critics, and so on. Obviously it's not as simple as saying, "Invert everything he says, and that's what he really means" but simply posting a clip of Colbert and saying, "He totally called Assagne on it" is a little odd.
And if any of the Afghans whose names were leaked are killed? Can we call that "collateral murder" too?It's already been done, by journalists, politicians, and assorted commentators. Even in cases where it turns out that the Afghans in question were dead before their names were leaked. So, you know. This whole 'hyperbolic framing' criticism is pretty much about the way or society communicates and filters information. Pretending that it's a WikiLeaks issue is silly.
Who can be so overtly covert?— The Fugs
Sometimes even covertly overt
Fuckin'-a man!
CIA man!
Watch the ENTIRE fucking clip. About halfway through, Colbert drops character--a rare event--and the rest is a dead serious challenge.I did watch the entire fucking clip. I can only conclude that you didn't, or you're not vary good at detecting sarcasm or parody. Because you've put such a high value on this video clip of Stephen Colbert interviewing Assagne, I'll quote the portion of it that comes after the "callout."
Colbert: What is the purpose of letting the public know? It's like you're saying that it's better to know than not know things! have you not heard that ignorance is bliss?That's the part that comes after the middle section in which you say he drops character. He asks Assagne some tough questions, to be sure, but Assagne answers them articulately and Colbert moves on to other topics: by the end of the clip, the tone is what can be described as "comfortable, tending towards chummy."
Assagne: All too frequently.
Colbert: Until I knew something about Baghdad, I could assume it was paradise! This footage puts a face on war that says people get killed.
Assagne: A lot of soldiers have said through various blogs and emails, "War is war--"
Colbert: Exactly! I haven't fought in a war, therefore I don't judge it. How can you do that?
Assagne: They say, "War is war," but what is war? We show it. You can make justifications and say that lots of bad things happen in war, but what is it? This is what it is.
Colbert: (Long, thoughtful pause, stroking chin until audience laughs)
"Pentagon lawyers believe that online whistleblower group WikiLeaks acted illegally in disclosing thousands of classified Afghanistan war reports and other material, and federal prosecutors are exploring possible criminal charges, officials familiar with the matter said.posted by ericb at 1:17 PM on August 21, 2010 [1 favorite]
A joint investigation by the Army and the Federal Bureau of Investigation is still in its early stages and it is unclear what course the Department of Justice will decide to take, according to a U.S. law-enforcement official.
He said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange had not been identified by the FBI as a target of the probe.
... Several officials said the Defense and Justice departments were now exploring legal options for prosecuting Mr. Assange and others involved on grounds they encouraged the theft of government property.
Bringing a case against WikiLeaks would be controversial and complicated, and would expose the Obama administration to criticism for pursuing not just government leakers, but organizations that disseminate their information.
The increasingly confrontational tone could be part of Pentagon efforts to dissuade WikiLeaks from posting online the yet-to-be-published documents in its possession.
'It is the view of the Department of Defense that WikiLeaks obtained this material in circumstances that constitute a violation of United States law, and that as long as WikiLeaks holds this material, the violation of the law is ongoing,' Defense Department General Counsel Jeh Charles Johnson wrote in a letter this week to a WikiLeaks lawyer.
The letter did not spell out what those circumstances were.
People familiar with the matter said investigators and government lawyers were looking at whether WikiLeaks pressed or encouraged army intelligence analyst Pfc. Bradley Manning to leak the Afghan war logs after the army private provided the group with a classified Iraq video.
Such a finding could increase the chances that prosecutors will pursue charges against WikiLeaks, legal experts said.
Steven Aftergood, head of the project on government secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, said U.S. law gives prosecutors a number of tools they could use to prosecute WikiLeaks, such as alleging the group was an accessory to a crime or had unlawfully taken possession of stolen property. If WikiLeaks actively encouraged the transfer of classified documents, the government could allege the group was part of a conspiracy, he said.
At issue is whether WikiLeaks should be afforded the same legal protections as a traditional media outlet.
Legal experts said the government may view WikiLeaks differently because of the way it gathers and publishes information. Its website actively solicits classified material and promises leaking is 'safe, easy and protected by law.'
When established news organizations obtain classified information, they rarely publish it wholesale or without first consulting the government to authenticate the information and to ensure it doesn't compromise national security. WikiLeaks' model eschews that step.
'If WikiLeaks thought it would make the last move and the government would not respond, they may be mistaken,' said Mr. Aftergood. 'But it would be a terrible new precedent if these legal options were actually employed against a publisher, even a disreputable one. Once such measures were used against WikiLeaks, it would only be a matter of time until they are used against other media outlets and individuals.'" [...more...]"
The application of customary Assange
2010-08-21
Chief prosecutor Eva Is anhållningsbeslutet has lifted by Julian Assange. Hon anser inte att det finns skäl för att han ska vara fortsatt anhållen. She does not believe that there are reasons for him to remain in custody.
- I do not think there is reason to suspect that he committed rape, "says Eva Finn.
Eva Is leaving no further comment on Saturday. One by one, soldiers just arriving in Baghdad were taken into a room and questioned by their commanding officers. "All questions led up to the big question," explains former Army Spc. Josh Stieber. "If someone were to pull out a weapon in a marketplace full of unarmed civilians, would you open fire on that person, even if you knew you would hurt a lot of innocent people in the process?"Too bad Assagne was so cavalier with the truth, suggesting that they might have opened fire on unarmed civilians to take out a guy with a weapon. You know. By posting video of them opening fire on unarmed civilians to take out a guy with a weapon. Like they were told to do. And beaten if they hesitated.
It was a trick question. "Not only did you have to say yes, but you had to say yes without hesitating," explains Stieber. "In refusing to go along with the crowd, it was not irregular for somebody to get beat up," he adds. "They'll take you in a room, close the door and knock you around if they didn't like your answer," says former Army Spc. Ray Corcoles, who deployed with Stieber.
I also hope your philosophy on this allows you to justify how the us government has hidden how pat tillman and countless other young men and women have died from "friendly" fire.hal_c_on, I've disagreed with Ironmouth a couple times in this thread now but I think that's uncalled for. He's made clear that his objections to WikiLeaks are based on his belief that Assagne is a publicity-seeker rather than an honest advocate of the truth. Impugning Ironmouth's motives does no one any good.
People who think Assange is a hero should read the ongoing articles at Mother Jones and the profile at The New Yorker, and watch the video of Colbert interviewing him. It shows a different side of him -- unbelievably paranoid and calculating.
I stand by my earlier assesment--Assange is a self-serving dick.Calling him out for what, exactly? Daring to pass judgment on the military without having served? The whole show was about the 'collateral murder' tape, and Colbert repeated a few criticisms of the release that had been going around. Obviously people are going see whatever they want in the interview. It's well known that conservatives think Colbert is a conservative, etc.
Check out Colbert calling him out.
It means exactly what it means. Watch the fucking clip. He called him out for editing that video and not showing the entire thing and calling it "collateral murder" instead of letting people make up their own mind. He points out all of the stuff that Assange left out. Assange had to admit it.Uh, no. I watched the video when it aired. Colbert got a little confused about which video was which, that's all. There was a 17 minute video and a 30+ minute video. At some point Colbert seemed to get a little confused on that point and seemed to think the millions of people who watched the 17 minute video were only people who visited the website and didn't watch either video.
Watch the ENTIRE fucking clip. About halfway through, Colbert drops character--a rare event--and the rest is a dead serious challenge.
So, just to be clear, your criticism applies as well to every news station that played fragments of the clip and not all 40 minutes of the footage uninterrupted?Only if they post the entire, unedited video on their websites, which is what wikileaks actually did. Nothing was hidden or removed. A shorter video with context added was also posted.
“The Swedish tabloid Aftonblade has an interview with one of Assange's two accusers, an unidentified 30-year-old woman. She tells Aftonblade that the other alleged victim contacted her about an incident with Assange, and the two went to the police together last week. The accusations are ‘sexual assault or molestation’ in her case, and rape in the case of the other woman. (The rape accusations were declared ‘unfounded’ by the police.) If you'll excuse the Google translate, this is from Aftonblade:So a huge amount of the reckless speculation can be ended. At the most general level, we actually have a lot of information.Women and Assange met during his stay in Stockholm and had not previously seen either him or each other.The woman says that at first the sex was consensual, but turned non-consensual in both cases. She also refutes the idea that the Pentagon or any of Assange's detractors are behind the accusations:
The woman in her 30s said that she, for her part claims to be a victim of a sexual assault or molestation, but not a rape.
The origins of the police report came in last Friday. Another woman approached her and told a similar, but worse story. The woman is between 20 and 30.The charges against Assange are of course not orchestrated by either the Pentagon or another. The responsibility for what happened to me and the other girl is in a man with skew kvinnosyn problems and to take no for an answer.
From what I can tell the US plans on first attempting to reign in Assange with threats of unleashing an army of DOJ lawyers, Treasury officials and US Cybercommand on his network of supporters and backers.they would only be able to do this if they were US citizens, right?
This is a much more realistic threat than some black op call him a rapist and hope he gets arrested scenario.ahhh... ummmm. i asked early and upthread, didn't one of the Bushs use the excuse of a US woman being raped by Hussein people as one of the reasons to invade Iraq?
Once the US Department of Justice starts a full blown RICO investigation,Correct me if am wrong, but RICO (which is usually used for corporations) can only be used on corporations US citizens and/or corporations doing business in the US. you can't technically RICO internet corporations that are incorporated elsewhere.
Treasury starts locking off access to bank accounts and Cyber Command starts threatening ISPs, taking name servers and CIDR allocations away life could get extraordinarily difficult for Assange and his friends.i haven't done a thorough search, but Wikileaks nor Sunshine Press appear to be either US corporations or international companies doing business in the US. are you saying that if i donate money to Wikileaks this would happen to someone like me? with my healthy level of paranoia, i wouldn't put it past them, but given how the US has conducted its war machine in the last ... hmmmm ... i don't know ... 100+ years, it's not far-fetched to think the US is involved in the character assassination of Assange.
"It's very hard work to run an organization, let alone one that's constantly being spied upon and sued," Mr. Assange said in the interview.Heh.
This is not a leak. This is wholesale stealing of documents from the government and then turning them over to a private organization which then dumps them to pursue an agenda against a war they do not like.That is pretty much the definition of "A leak." I understand and sympathize with the difference between a "Whistlblower" and a "source," but I think that you're really grinding an axe against Assange here. WikiLeaks for better or worse pursues a deliberate strategy of forcing "open-ness" by leaking information that is hidden. There are lots of disagreements about whether that is good or bad, but you're playing No True Scotsman here pretty hardcore.
There is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment.... For the facts of the matter are that this nation's foes have openly boasted of acquiring through our newspapers information they would otherwise hire agents to acquire through theft, bribery or espionage; that details of this nation's covert preparations to counter the enemy's covert operations have been available to every newspaper reader, friend and foe alike; that the size, the strength, the location and the nature of our forces and weapons, and our plans and strategy for their use, have all been pinpointed in the press and other news media to a degree sufficient to satisfy any foreign power; and that, in at least in one case, the publication of details concerning a secret mechanism whereby satellites were followed required its alteration at the expense of considerable time and money. The newspapers which printed these stories were loyal, patriotic, responsible and well-meaning.... And my question tonight is whether additional tests should not now be adopted. The question is for you alone to answer. No public official should answer it for you. No governmental plan should impose its restraints against your will.posted by McGuillicuddy at 12:14 PM on August 23, 2010
(JFK, Address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association, 1961)
I want to talk about our common responsibilities in the face of a common danger. The events of recent weeks may have helped to illuminate that challenge for some; but the dimensions of its threat have loomed large on the horizon for many years. Whatever our hopes may be for the future--for reducing this threat or living with it--there is no escaping either the gravity or the totality of its challenge to our survival and to our security--a challenge that confronts us in unaccustomed ways in every sphere of human activity.He continued:
This deadly challenge imposes upon our society two requirements of direct concern both to the press and to the President--two requirements that may seem almost contradictory in tone, but which must be reconciled and fulfilled if we are to meet this national peril. I refer, first, to the need for a far greater public information; and, second, to the need for far greater official secrecy.
But I do ask every publisher, every editor, and every newsman in the nation to reexamine his own standards, and to recognize the nature of our country's peril. In time of war, the government and the press have customarily joined in an effort based largely on self-discipline, to prevent unauthorized disclosures to the enemy. In time of "clear and present danger," the courts have held that even the privileged rights of the First Amendment must yield to the public's need for national security.Even more tellingly, you omit the very quote before your passage which would make it clear to the reader exactly what JFK was talking about:
... If the press is awaiting a declaration of war before it imposes the self-discipline of combat conditions, then I can only say that no war ever posed a greater threat to our security. If you are awaiting a finding of "clear and present danger," then I can only say that the danger has never been more clear and its presence has never been more imminent.
Agreed there. If you refuse to believe that war is sometimes a necessary thing, than it is apparently a good for you to show people how horrible war is so that they will have revulsion for it. However, I think there are necessary wars still extant and that they will not go away by just wishing that other people wouldn't use guns on us.It sounds like you're suggesting that people who support WikiLeaks do so because they don't believe that war is ever necessary. I can only assume that you're using hyperbole: no one here has said anything of the sort, nor has Julian Assange.
Awareness of the blood and brutality is crucial to people who favour any war.It makes perfect sense: many people favor war, but those people must also remain aware of war's terrible cost, not just in dollars but in the lives that will be lost on both sides and the psychological and moral toll that it takes on the soldiers involved.
This is the statement I was responding to. Hmm . . . now I'm confused. His statement makes no sense. I was assuming that he was saying that "hiding awareness of blood and brutality is crucial to people who favour any war." But he didn't. However, the statement he made doesn't really make sense unless you assert the "hiding" in front of it.
...a mass leak of 360,000 documents unreviewed by any party is not the way to review the policies or to change them. That's for the political process.Correct me if I'm wrong, but the mass leak of 360,000 documents was made to a party this is reviewing them, and has not released all of the documents to the public yet.
The question is for you [the free press] alone to answer. No public official should answer it for you. No governmental plan should impose its restraints against your will.McGuillicuddy, as a dyed-in-the-wool contrarian, I also have to note that there is considerable danger in idealizing the nature of the western press. Information that is important but fundamentally uninteresting, or is hard to digest, will probably not see the light of day. I don't think that this makes the press 'lapdogs' so much as it makes the current press part of a complex problem. I'm not sure that any of us have a clear handle on the solution.
I supported the Afghanistan war as necessary and opposed the Iraq war as totally unnecessary.Likewise. I think it's fair to say that most people here in MetaFilter were in the same boat: negative reactions to the Afganistan invasion after 9/11 were mostly restricted to concerns that we'd botch it, and distaste at the ignorant "Yeah! Let's bomb it back into the 13th century!" rhetoric that some of the country's more eager hawks were throwing around. Pretty much everyone agreed that the Taliban was bad news and Bin Ladin had to be stopped; in fact a number of the people I know were relieved at the idea that something had finally caused our nation to take a look at the horrors that the Taliban was visiting on Afganistan.
But I do not believe that there are no wars that are required, and when there is a titanic terrorist attack on the city where I live, an attack which was made possible by state sponsorship, then I believe that state so sponsoring has to be stopped and prevented from continuing to be the platform from which such attacks can be launched.No one in this thread has disagreed with you on that point, as far as I can tell. As far as I'm aware, Julian Assange has never disagreed with you. Believing that a conflict is necessary, though, is not the same as believing that a conflict is without human cost. In a democratic society, understanding the true cost of the wars that we wage is a fundamental moral prerequisite, just as understanding the true cost of giving free health care to everyone is a fundamental moral prerequisite of passing new legislation.
Perhaps you disagree. Perhaps you believe that the United States had no right to assist the Northern Alliance in breaking the hold of the barbaric Taliban on Afghanistan so that the Taliban could no longer provide a safe base for al Qaeda to continue operating. But I then ask, "what is to be done?" Are we to sit there doing nothing? I say no.The question of whether the United States had the right to invade Afghanistan is a bit of a moot point, IMO. While the Iraq invasion was contentious, the Afganistan invasion was almost universally supported in the United States. Characterizing those who support WikiLeaks as being "Against War" is unfair, I think -- from what I've seen in this thread, the people you're talking to believe that the invasion and subsequent occupation has been executed in a way that ensures it will not achieve its objectives.
You bet people are dying. Innocent people. Frankly, the government doesn't hid that information from people.
"As I wrote in 'WikiLeaks: The National-Security State Strikes Back,' a highly classified Army Counterintelligence Center 32-page memorandum [PDF] noted that to eliminate the threat presented by WikiLeaks, the United States would have to strike not simply servers and databases, but against the individuals who were critical to the operation of WikiLeaks. It repeatedly identifies Assange as a target, describes the leaks as criminal acts and advocates 'successful prosecutions' to 'destroy the center of gravity' of WikiLeaks. The suspicions raised by Assange are thus hardly unwarranted—they match the Pentagon’s own plan to take WikiLeaks out of action. However, there is as yet no direct evidence for the claim that the accusations leveled at Assange were the work of some intelligence service, and even if there were, Assange has plenty of governments anxious to shut him down aside from the United States. But as this incident makes clear, the war on WikiLeaks will be fought with unconventional tools and those following the story are advised to accept nothing at face value."posted by ericb at 7:35 AM on August 24, 2010
So in the interest of the future - you are wrong. Yet again.I just want to poke my head in again and say that's a pretty unfair characterization of what Ironmouth has said in the thread. he defends whistleblowers, and his objections revolve around whether the WikiLeaks approach is a net benefit, whether it deserves the kind of moral 'covering' that we have traditionally given to whistleblowers, and so on.
And frankly Ironmouth, your posts in this tread read like someone who's income is tied to supporting the system of laws and classification and things like the WikiLeak's goal of openness will cut into your paycheck.
I've always found women caught in a thunderstorm appealing. Perhaps it is a male universal, for without advertising this proclivity a lovely girl I knew, but not well, on discovering within herself lascivious thoughts about me and noticing raindrops outside her windows, stood for a moment fully clothed in her shower before letting the wind and rain buffet her body as she made her tremulous approach to my door and of course I could not turn her away.Heh. Odd dude, this. Not unintelligent, but... odd.
But then, just when one might suspect that men are krill to the baleen of female romantic manipulation, I found myself loving a girl who was a coffee addict. I would make a watery paste of finely ground coffee and surreptitiously smear this around my neck and shoulders before seducing her so she would associate my body with her dopaminergic cravings. But every association relates two objects both ways. She started drinking more and more coffee. Sometimes I looked at her cups of liquid arabicia with envious eyes for if there were four cups then somehow, I was one of them, or a quarter of everyone one of them...
One of the women claimed in a Swedish newspaper: ‘The responsibility for what happened to me and the other girl lies with a man who has a twisted attitude to women and a problem taking no for an answer.’
Another WikiLeaks organizer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Assange had been resisting efforts over the last two weeks to push him off the public stage as a result of the criminal investigation in Sweden, and that his insistence on “staying in charge of everything” was creating “a mess for everyone” as the website prepares to release an additional library of 13,000 classified American military reports from the war in Afghanistan. The website outraged the Pentagon in July when it released more than 70,000 other classified reports from the war.posted by homunculus at 1:13 PM on September 6, 2010 [1 favorite]
This WikiLeaks organizer said that internal protests directed at Assange resulted in a temporarily shutdown of the WikiLeaks website several days ago, nominally for mechanical reasons. “It was really meant to be a sign to Julian that he needs to rethink his situation,” the organizer. “Our technical people were sending a message.”
A WikiLeaks insider has challenged claims that co-founder Julian Assange is at threat of being booted due to his well-publicised rape charges in Sweden.posted by dabitch at 4:40 AM on September 7, 2010
As the secretive website prepares to release a second tranche of confidential US intelligence files about the war in Afghanistan, an internal struggle appears to have erupted over the position of Assange, who is both spokesman and editor-in-chief.
Contrary to claims over the past few days, however, the well-placed insider said Assange is not at threat of being kicked out of WikiLeaks.
The person, who requested anonymity, contacted this website to deny recent suggestions that members were trying to kick Assange out of the organisation.
‘‘There’s no discussion of a founder getting chopped,’’ they said.
No-one wanted Assange to step down from his role as editor-in-chief of Wikileaks they said, though ‘‘a few people have have floated the idea of him stepping down as the media spokesperson.’’
« Older Fate of Universe revealed by galactic lens [spoile... | Macho Salad.... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
Someone doing the kind of work he does would never jeopardize everything over something obvious and stupid and horrific as raping someone. I hate to sound like a knee-jerk conspiracy theorist but the whole story stinks.
posted by mathowie at 5:02 AM on August 21, 2010 [31 favorites]