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Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation

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701–710 of 784 posts

Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation

#701

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the "entire intelligence community is deflated Anything that makes the intelligence community deflated is a good thing.

Unless it means that those attacks that the intelligence community prevented will take place.

There is no publicly available credible evidence that the intelligence community has any effectiveness preventing attacks.

Point of reference, TSA has a 90% failure rate on tests of their performance while consuming vast amounts of money and inconveniencing every traveler. Does the public have any good reason to believe the CIA is more effective than the TSA?

Is there any reason to believe the CIA does more good than harm?

Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation

#702
post #451

What a weird statment. How can a country decide to drop a crime against its citizen. Shouldn't the person who got raped be deciding that.

In most European countries, the state prosecutor decides who to charge with a crime, regardless what purported victims think. It might be a bit foreign, but it does help with some cases, like partner violence, where the victim might not want to press charges against a violent partner. Under this model, if the police learns of the crime, they are obliged to prosecute it if possible.

Same is true in the U.S. as a victim you can decide whether to “press charges” i.e. file an official crime report. However it is only the District Attorney’s office that has the power to file criminal charges.

Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation

#703
post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most European countries, the state prosecutor decides who to charge with a crime, regardless what purported victims think. It might be a bit foreign, but it does help with some cases, like partner violence, where the victim might not want to press charges against a violent partner. Under this model, if the police learns of the crime, they are obliged to prosecute it if possible.

> the state prosecutor decides who to charge with a crime, regardless what purported victims think. So state prosecutor can simply drop the charges if she feels like it? in usa people have the right to jury trial. Seems really unfair that prosecutor can unilaterally simply drop your case, wonder why its that way.

That’s not true, in the U.S., the DA has complete authority to decide whether to file charges. You have no right to a trial until after you are charged.

You can file a civil suit to get a judge to make declarations of fact in some cases, but I don’t believe there is any criminal equivalent of that.

Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation

#704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Odds are pretty high the intelligence community has resulted in more attacks on America than it has prevented.

I don't know, I don't think so, but I also think that, as much as I don't like police, we can work on their brutality, their behaviour, their racism, their biases, but without police forces the situation wouldn't be much better.

If the CIA has "gone rogue" what current publicly-known controls would be able to stop them from continued actions which are not in the best interest of the American public?

Congressional oversight is a mild annoyance to them at best, and the CIA has been caught lying to them before. No reason to trust they are working in our interests except "I believe the propaganda" and wishful thinking.

Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation

#705

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if it was only a pretext, probably not only, but Sweden certainly doesn't have a track record of either pursuing rape suspects using the full arsenal of state powers, or of publicly announcing rape allegations as was done in this case. The accusations might very well be true, but the Swedish prosecutions actions and statements has baffled me from day one. His legal representation acted quite strange too.…

It’s obvious that the rape charges were a highly selective enforcement action. It would be great if Sweden pursued every rapist as though they were Osama Bin Laden but the fact is they only pursued one.

What makes it obvious?

Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation

#706
post #74

There were, not long ago, times when Assange was considered a saint of freedom after he exposed the corrupt Bush administration, the liberals everywhere were defending him and his case everywhere, they even made a Hollywood film about him. But he then made the mistake of his life, he exposed the corruption of the Clintons and got implicated in the Russia gate meme because Trump somehow won. Now he is totally on his o…

I agree he’s a saint of freedom.

I also have no trouble believing the testimony that he sexually assaulted someone.

I’m not sure how those things are at odds.

Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation

#707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Chelsea Manning was the anonymous whistleblower Manning was a spiteful security leak, not a whistleblower.

Don't forget that we hate the US government here, anyone that does anything to damage it is a hero and anyone that respects it is a menace.

Because exposing killings of innocent civilians is something people would not approve of unless it was the US government doing the killing?

I'm sure if she had leaked a google drone killing people in Zimbabwe everybody hate her. Google marketing guys would be like 'spiteful security leak, not a whistleblower.'.

Sometimes I just can't with shit like this. I have to go offline for a while.

Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation

#708
post #474
post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the "few aspects" like the prison system, healthcare, inequality, corruption, homelessness rates, freedom of the press, air pollution, crime rates, discrimination, police violence, homicide rates, unemployment benefits, social nets...

Seriously, if you all believe everywhere else in the world is so much better, why stay? For context, I'm married to a person from a real developing country, as it's actually defined. I'm sending multiple family members to school there so they can get out. Every single person in her family has done everything they can to get out. Every single person I know there has done everything they can to get out. Every single pe…

>Seriously, if you all believe everywhere else in the world is so much better, why stay?

Right, because should an American decide that they like country X more, they can just move to country X, which is waiting for them with open arms.

Like, anyone could be Swedish, right?

Immigration is an easy-peasy thing; who can possibly find it difficult to get a job overseas, learn a language, leave family and friends behind, get an entire new social and support network, lose a ton of money and/or most of your possessions in an overseas move (re-purchasing is often cheaper, but costs a ton either way), jump through a thousand bureaucratic hoops, all with no guarantee of actually having long-term prospects in the country paper-wise.

That's, of course, assuming that no American has crippling debt that would effectively prevent them from going somewhere where people can comfortably live on a smaller salary (since their education and healthcare are free).

No sirree, not a problem at all. Love it or leave it, and when you do, don't come back, just get another citizenship somewhere. Somehow. Should be easy, right?

Also, nobody in their right mind would think to criticize some aspects of a country (healthcare, justice system, etc), while enjoying some others (opportunities as a software developer) that make it worth it to be here. Not even immigrants.

Tell you what, even in 90-s Ukraine, one wouldn't think much about calling an ambulance if someone was real sick. And I wasn't afraid of the cops there. They were corrupt, but predictable; worst case, you have to bribe them. Police shooting unarmed civilians was unheard of. I don't think I've even seen a gun before I moved to the US.

The US has some catching-up to do.

Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation

#709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was far from "obvious". Extradition from Sweden would have been harder than from the UK.

But he was right. It happened. He was proven correct. The people who disagreed were just wrong. And I think it is OK to call the people who didn't believe this, to have been extremely misinformed.

He was extradited from the UK, not from Sweden.

Re: Sweden Drops Julian Assange Rape Investigation

#710
post #679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But isn't this a bit of a catch 22 though? Do you honestly believe that this situation could have ended any other way, other than him being extradited to the USA? I am saying, that no matter what happened, whether there was a secret order, or not, or whether an extradition order would have been sent, the moment he stepped out of the embassy (but otherwise did not "exist" prior to him stepping out of the embassy), wha…

There are no known extradition orders from the Obama DoJ, and the feds have claimed they didn't want to bother with him in the Holder era. To believe he would be extradited to the US requires Assange's claimed extradition threat to have been real, but there's not only no evidence, but some evidence that suggests there never was one. The position that there never was a sealed extradition request can be falsified with…

Ok, but imagine an alternate universe where, if during the Holder era, there was a secret extradition order.

Would you imagine that what we are observing right now, would be any different than this hypothetical universe where a secret extradition order did indeed exist?

Is it really so hard to believe that such a hypothetical universe would almost certainly look exactly like the universe that we are in right now?

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