@spendius,
You are obviously off on one of your rants, spendius ....
To get back to the subject, my position on Wikileaks & Julian Assange is pretty clear from what I've posted to this thread, I think.:
- I support the work of Wikileaks, including Julian Assange's & Bradley Manning's parts in that work. I believe that if the NYT, Guardian, etc, had been the initial recipient/s of those leaks they would have published much the same information which they received from Wikileaks
-I think that the US government's response to both Julian Assange & Bradley Manning have been way out of proportion to what they actually
did.
I believe that Bradley Manning is a political prisoner who has been treated appalling by his own government "to make an example" of him, for political purposes. How can a year in solitary confinement, while awaiting trial, be in any way justified?
-I believe the US would like to do exactly the same to Julian Assange, if they can get their hands on him.
-As to the "rape allegations" in Sweden. (No charges as yet) I still cannot understand why the Swedish government, who
allowed him to leave the country (after he waited for 15 days in Sweden to oblige them) could not have requested that the British government allow them to interview to Julian Assange while he was under house arrest.
-I understand that he lost his supreme court case ( to not be extradited to Sweden) on the basis of
technical interpretations of European laws about such matters. I understand those same laws have been the subject of considerable controversy before they applied to Julian Assange.
-I can understand perfectly well why Julian Assange would
not want to return to Sweden to answer prosecution questions, which would require that he be
jailed while obliging.
Given Sweden's history of obliging the US on extradition matters (like handing over its own citizens for extraordinary rendition), that is perfectly understandable, in my opinion.
-Even though "rape trials" in Sweden (
if he is found to have a case to answer) are held behind
closed doors, I can understand why he (or anyone else) might believe that this is unacceptable. There would be no allowable scrutiny of the proceedings by any of us.
-I absolutely do not accept the Australian government's claim that has done "all it can" to assist Julian Assange. Which is its
obligation, to
any Australian citizen in trouble abroad. In fact there's been quite a history of my government doing quite the opposite, to oblige the US. (Including a federal police investigation at government request - at around same the time our then attorney-general declared Julian Assange was "not welcome" to return to Australia - which found that Julian Assange had broken no Australian law.
-I absolutely do not believe the assurances of the US ambassador to Australia that the US is not interested in extraditing him from Sweden to face charges in the US. Read the leaks Strafor emails for details.:
Quote:UNITED STATES prosecutors have drawn up secret charges against the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, according to a confidential email obtained from the private US intelligence company Stratfor.
In an internal email to Stratfor analysts on January 26 last year, the vice-president of intelligence, Fred Burton, responded to a media report concerning US investigations targeting WikiLeaks with the comment: ''We have a sealed indictment on Assange.''
He underlined the sensitivity of the information - apparently obtained from a US government source - with warnings to ''Pls [please] protect'' and ''Not for pub[lication]'' ..<cont>.
Revealed: US plans to charge Assange :
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/revealed-us-plans-to-charge-assange-20120228-1u14o.html
2012 Stratfor email leak:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Stratfor_email_leak
-Finally, I do not believe that (if it comes to it) that Julian Assange can possibly receive a fair trial for "rape charges". Every single report I have read about the charges connects him to Wikileaks. This is seen as a trial of "the leader Of Wikileaks" & that's how it's been presented in all of the many media reports I've read. I have absolutely no doubt that if it wasn't "the leader of Wikileaks" this issue would have vanished from the pages of our newspapers long ago.
OK, so there you have it in a (rather long!
) nutshell, spendius.
If you want to comment on what I've actually
written, fine. No problem.
But do me a favour ... I would really appreciate it if you didn't waffle on about what you
imagine my thinking might be. And don't put words into my mouth, OK?
......
