781–790 of 1001 posts
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Trouble is, as part of the deal he is headed to an US territory next to Australia, right? Seems like the perfect place to kidnap him
That would be a great way for Biden to blow the election for no reason.
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1901 days in prison, after all that time since 2012 holed up in a room in the Ecuadorian embassy first.
He was in isolation in a high security prison without having been convicted of any crimes since 22 September 2019. He was only released after 'admitting' that he was guilty... I think the UK and US should abstain from criticising any countries' courts and justice system after that...
The 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.
Clinton is not democracy. Anti-Clinton is not anti democracy. Being anti the US government is not anti democratic. And no, letting USA or any other nation for that matter commit war crimes quietly does not support democracy.
> A reporter worried that Assange would risk killing Afghans who had co-operated with American forces if he put US secrets online without taking the basic precaution of removing their names. "Well, they're informants," Assange replied. "So, if they get killed, they've got it coming to them. They deserve it." A silence fell on the table as the reporters realised that the man the gullible hailed as the pioneer of a new age of transparency was willing to hand death lists to psychopaths. They persuaded Assange to remove names before publishing the State Department Afghanistan cables. But Assange's disillusioned associates suggest that the failure to expose "informants" niggled in his mind.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/sep/18/julian...
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Yeah Afghans too "Well, they're informants," Assange replied. "So, if they get killed, they've got it coming to them. They deserve it." https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/sep/18/julian... I'm ambivalent about his jailing. If you are going to get heroic people killed then you can't cry too much if you get jailed a bit.
Well, his words were unfortunate, but considering how the Americans left Afghanistan in total chaos a few years ago is even more unfortunate, to put it mildly. They threw most of their allies and collaborators under the bus. The American government has NO moral superiority. And they just need to shut up.
I am going to hold the celebrations until we are sure there isn't anything else on the horizon. He isn't getting a pardon and being declared free and clear of charges in the US is very difficult. Who knows what state prosecutor might want to bring new state charges. He may also be wanted as a material witness. If I were him I wouldn't set foot outside Australia ever again.
My understanding is that a pardon cannot be granted without a conviction.
I think the pressure from the Australian government had to do a lot with this good news[0][1]. 0. https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Hansard/Hansar... 1. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/10/politics/biden-assange-au...
The first link is a motion spoken to independent Andrew Wilkie acknowledging supporters of Assange. The CNN article talks about the governments bid to have all charges dropped (they were not, he had to plead guilty on espionage). Despite Mr. Albanese (the prime minister)'s election promise to bring Assange home, he's officially refused[0] to talk to Biden about it and has never answered questions on what they're doin…
He refused it. Two years later, the Educadorian embassy kicked him out because they were tired of him smearing his shit all over the walls and assaulting female staff.
It's been extensively proven he was acting in collaboration with and in the interests of the russian government: https://www.vox.com/world/2017/1/6/14179240/wikileaks-russia...
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/julian-ass...
"fake rape case"? Take a look at Assange's history of misogynistic comments both in public and in internal wikileaks chats: https://theintercept.com/2018/02/14/julian-assange-wikileaks...
...and him assaulting female Ecuadorian staff
...and tell me again how it's more plausible that both Swedish prosecutors and the Swedish criminal court system up to and including their supreme court conspired with the US to fake an entire case around Assange sexually assaulting two women. And then the UK government joined in that conspiracy. And then Ecuador joined in that conspiracy?
Or...and bear with me here for a second...he's a misogynistic asshole who has so little respect for women he treats them as sexual objects?
This isn't something good though, in fact it's really bad. He's actually agreed to confess to something which the US should have no legal authority over. We must remember that the US are torturers who tortured people here in Sweden, right at Bromma airport, even after specifically agreeing not to torture them. It is not a country which should have any influence whatsoever outside its borders; and this is someone who…
> It is not a country which should have any influence whatsoever outside its borders I wholly agree, as an American citizen
I don't want to infinitely limit US influence, and want something more like no one country being able to dictate anything to others, an increased capacity for all countries to be free from both overt and covert influence of all sorts, etc., perhaps with the exception of some particularly horrible countries.
I am going to hold the celebrations until we are sure there isn't anything else on the horizon. He isn't getting a pardon and being declared free and clear of charges in the US is very difficult. Who knows what state prosecutor might want to bring new state charges. He may also be wanted as a material witness. If I were him I wouldn't set foot outside Australia ever again.
My understanding is that a pardon cannot be granted without a conviction.
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How much of that price is real, and how much of it is grift?
This man spends almost five and a half years in prison fighting for press freedom and now you think he is suddenly a grifter? What planet do you live on or what U.S.Intel agency do you work for?