Paraphrasing Winston Churchill: “You can always trust the Americans to do the right thing, after having exhausted all other options.”
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Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free
481–490 of 1001 posts
Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free
#482My view of him changed when I saw a recording of him in a documentary saying that murdered Iraqi translators who worked with the US military got what they deserved for working with the enemy.
Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free
#483Earlier quoted context omitted.
He broke no laws in Australia. But the fact he is pleading guilty to a serious crime will have further implications for his life e.g. preventing travel, not allowed to apply for certain jobs etc.
The fact his name is assange already makes him ineligible for a bunch of things, and his connections and popularity already open lots of doors for him that aren't open for you and I. I think he'll be fine.
I think most likely his life is already over and he's being allowed to return to remaining years of psychological and physical ordeal following an experience most of us have no context to imagine.
I'm glad he's going home to his family, but this is a least-worst outcome to an awful miscarriage of justice that destroyed many lives.
Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free
#484Not sure how many at HN saw the Apache gunship mowing down civilians and journalists with cannon fire. Assange did a great service to shine light on the barbarians in action under the guise of saving freedom and democracy and paid a heavy price.
I saw it. I also saw the scores of other Apache videos mowing down legitimate targets (people launching rockets and mortars from vehicles)
Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free
#485Earlier quoted context omitted.
"How Swedish authorities falsified the rape complaint against Julian Assange" - https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000114363431/wie-die-schwe...
Blog piece. What he did is known as "stealthing" and it strangely doesn't address that at all?
Stealthing sounds like a great way to say "The sex happened consentually, but we'll add the fishiest and most easy to claim without proof accusation we can, since the previous drummed up charge didn't stick"
Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free
#486[flagged]
No, the damage is done and this is a better deterrent than if they'd killed him. Now any journalist knows that if they annoy the wrong people, they could have their lives and family completely destroyed right out in public and all done perfectly "legally".
Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free
#487The whole saga is an interesting lesson in how a noble cause can end up helping anti-democratic forces. Assange gave the public invaluable information that would not have been know otherwise, but he ended up playing right into the hands of the people who wanted to discredit Clinton. Politics is complicated.
A rich demagogue getting elected over a rich career politician technocrat who was smeared by right-wing money for decades sounds like "democracy" working well as it's ever worked. It's easy to blame one entity or another for these sorts of upset events, but national elections are media circuses largely run by private spending on the terms of private parties and blaming any one party seems like missing the forest for…
> Why we are discussing anything other than restricting the ability of money to interfere with our modern processes when it comes to "democratic health" is beyond me.
That's the point though, not that many people care about the implementation of a democracy, which itself is a form of democratic will (or the lack thereof). The problem with simply "more democracy" is we might end up with these contradictions.
People don't care much about the fine details of the implementation of their governance. In an ideal world, they would have voted in people who'd tear up these "money is speech" laws, but we live in a world where the average Joe only cares and are receptive to catchphrases.
Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free
#488Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, we should whip him for not having a level head when the entire US government is against him. Someone like you and I would have been sure to keep humble and not be egotistical when seeking asylum and fair justice against an entity that has military bases all over the world
I think the person you're replying to is referring to the accusations against WikiLeaks of just dumping raw documents without at least removing information that could lead to identifying (and thus endangering) people who e.g. assisted the US in Afghanistan or who provided documents to WL in the first place. Yes, there was a point in getting the information out as fast as possible, but I think it's fair to blame Assan…
If I recall correctly, the endangering information was not originally published by Wikileaks, but by other journalists (the decryption key was written in a book or something, my memory is fuzzy on this); and Wikileaks only published the whole thing once the cat was already out of the bag.
To sum this up, they were putting the redaction work, but someone else failed to, and at that point it was too late.
Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free
#489This has nothing to do with the merits (perceived or otherwise) of Assange's case.
Assange was never going to be extradited to the USA, because of the US Govt's behaviour in the Harry Dunn case (finally closed this month):
Harry Dunn was a UK teenager who, while riding his motorcycle was struck and killed by a car driving on the wrong side of the road close to a US Airforce base. The driver, Anne Sacoolas, was reported to be the wife of a US Intelligence Officer. Under the UK- US Govt agreement, Intelligence Officers could be prosecuted locally, but their husbands / wives had diplomatic immunity. The US Govt asserted diplomatic immunity (probably aided and abetted by the UK Govt), and Sacoolas was swiftly hustled out of the UK on a private flight by the NSA or CIS). Anyhow, after a long campaign for justice by Dunn's family, it turns out that Anne Sacoolas is herself a senior US Intelligence officer, so should not have had diplomatic immunity. Charges were brought in the UK, but the US Govt refused to extradite, despite a direct request from the UK Prime Minister (Johnson) to the US President (Trump). There has been huge and sustained public sympathy in the UK for the Dunn family in their quest for justice, and the UK legal system and civil service was seriously angered by the attitude of the US Govt. Anne Sacoolas finally pleaded guilty over video link to charges of causing death by dangerous driving earlier this year. The inquest on the death of Harry Dunn (which was delayed until the conclusion of the criminal case) concluded earlier this month.
The UK was not going to extradite Assange as the US Govt refused to extradite Sacoolas. There was enough noise around the conditions that Assange could be held in, or the possibility of him facing the death penalty, for UK judges (who have a lot of independence) to raise questions on Assange's possible treatment in the US, and refuse an extradition request - it had already been going round in circles on this question for years.
Everyone wanted a face saving resolution - and with the possibility of a Trump presidency next year, the UK Govt did not want to have a point of contention with Trump, and his severely transactional approach. So, this is a face-saving compromise for the UK and US Govts. Assange pleads guilty (so the US says they have brought him to justice), Assange goes home (not to the US), and the UK Govt gets a nasty diplomatic problem resolved.
Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free
#490Good, this was getting majorly embarrassing for all countries still involved with this legal mess. The man dying in prison stuck in legal limbo without any conviction whatsoever (innocent until proven guilty and all that) would have been a PR disaster for the UK. And of course there's also the issue that the UK is very likely to get a new government that would have likely been leaning to just letting the man go in an…
>innocent until proven guilty and all that
To be fair, he was refusing to face trial. And he is expected to plead guilty, so he isn't innocent.
That said, there may be legitimate questions about whether the United States should be entitled to exercise jurisdiction over foreign nationals who are not physically present in the jurisdiction for national security offences.