Is the Head of the IMF a Sex Criminal?

@spendius,

Your favorite auteur whom you keep quoting, the late unlamented (even by his own relatives) Marquis de Sade, was definitely in search of the "whole truth", exactly like FF here - recall however that in our legal system the oath is taken for "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

To see why that part on "...nothing but...." is quite so essential look no further than the writings of your favorite marquis - or any of FF's fantastical (quasi-hallucinatory) posts, or even the comedic left's allegations that abysmal bad taste in women (30 years younger, black, poorer, etc) should be counted against a "white man" in a "position of power". The exact same allegations of abysmal taste were brought against Bill Clinton in re Lewinski (30 years younger, fat jewish girl fr0m LA delivering pizzas?!) and never had the least weight under applicable law. Perhaps we should pass some laws against bad taste Smile

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@High Seas,

If we had such laws HS this thread would be illegal. Large, turgid wodges of it are in very bad taste.

The thing about the 18th century needs to be approached in a scientific frame of mind. Any old washerwoman can purse her lips and pontificate indignantly about it.

They were people much like us. Their institutions must have served an important economic function. It is only by meditating upon what functions were being served that any sensible pronouncements are possible.

And the icon of the Revolution, Liberty Leading the People (French: La Liberté guidant le peuple) is a painting by Eugène Delacroix commemorating the July Revolution of 1830, which toppled Charles X of France. A woman, with bared tits, personifying Liberty leads the people forward over the bodies of the fallen, men, holding the tricolore flag of the French Revolution in one hand and brandishing a bayonetted musket with the other. The painting is perhaps Delacroix's best-known work.

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Nothing about this case, from the initial stories about DSK's supposed proclivities to the more recent stories suggesting a wide range of illicit activities and potential motives on the part of the supposed victim, surprises me very much. Like ehBeth above, I am confident that a sexual act of some kind took place in the suite at the Sofitel, but, beyond that, we are all confronted with the whole range of potential human motivations and actions, and none of us here yet knows for sure what happened or wht it happened.

Given the charges made and the evidence so far reported, the initial actions of the police and District attorney appear correct. The long-standing difficulties we have encountered with France with respect to the extradition of even American citizens convicted of murder appear to justify their haste in apprehending DSK before he left the country. It may well turn out that there was culpability on the part of the prosecutors in the days following the arrest for failing to more aggressively investigate the background and character of the accuser. We may also find that the incident illustrates the ease with which desperate people may manipulate naive laws and policies we have adopted regarding immigration of "victims? of (politically fashionable ) oppression abroad. Beyond that, it is simply a matter of establishing as much of the truth as possible in a criminal matter and applying as much justice as we can.

It may turn out that Spendi's insights and imaginings are largely verified in this instance. The fact that, prejudgments of all kinds are sometimes correct, doesn't justify them or make them reliable guides to belief. There were, and perhaps still are, other possibilities, and closing one's mind to them is simply foolish ... or worse.

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@georgeob1,

No country is bound to extradite its own citizens under any bilateral or multilateral international treaty, as you know - so extradition issues are irrelevant. I agree with you that Cy Vance Jr. (a good guy, I knew his dad from working in Iran in the late '70s) did the best possible job in this godawful mess.

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@High Seas,

High Seas wrote:

No country is bound to extradite its own citizens under any bilateral or multilateral international treaty, as you know - so extradition issues are irrelevant. I agree with you that Cy Vance Jr. (a good guy, I knew his dad from working in Iran in the late '70s) did the best possible job in this godawful mess.

The Wall Street Journal came the closest to this view, but the overwhelming sentiment has been that Vance screwed up big time here, by charging early and heavy before he had even the slightest bit of time to investigate the credibility of the complaint, and then he compounded the problem by vouching for her credibility and claiming that he had a very strong case, again before the investigation. He compounded it again by arguing that DSK should not leave Rykers under any condition. I throw in that it took his people far to long to discover the truth, and that once it was clear that he had no case that he was too slow to drop charges.

Claiming that Vance did a good job here is going to be a very minority view, and this failure is part of a string of failures that he has put together during his short time in the chair.

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@hawkeye10,

An interesting radio talk about what happens now to the french debate about how much machismo should be challenged or outlawed. My own expectation is the DSK goes back a hero, and the French decide that he never has done much to be disapproved of. There will however in the future be less political profit in bagging the chicks, as the French see the as less the behavior of a strong French man and more a potential problem.

It is clear that the French feminists, especially the few man hating one's who have advocated for following the American model, have just had their asses handed to them.

http://www.npr.org/2011/07/03/137588365/dsk-case-crumbles-will-frances-sexism-debate-be-next?ft=1&f=1004

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

Given the charges made and the evidence so far reported, the initial actions of the police and District attorney appear correct

Yes, running to the airport and dragging one of the most important men, at the time, on the damn planet off to a jail cell on the word of a hotel maid without doing any checking first is surely correct at least in your very strange universe.

If she did in fact do hooking under the very noses of the DA and the police I would love to see the idiots faces when that was reported to them.

In any case, as far as I am aware there is no current question that she committed a felony in lying to the grand jury and she did in face lied on US federal forms claiming to be a rape victim before and added to that a drug dealer boyfriend and a hundred thousands dollars or so in broken up bank accounts in her name the game is over but for the shouting.

The state department should have gotten involved as these little actions of the New York DA office had badly and rightly harm the image of the whole nation.

The whole matter could had been handle quietly by having the State Department officers go with the New York Police and very firmly requesting DSK not to leave the country under threat of arrest otherwise for a few days until this Maid and her story could be check out.

Given that the UN headquarters are in New York surely the state must have a working relationship with the State Department in dealing with such sensitive matters.

Of course it could had been the State Department who drop the ball as at the very least the State must had ask them if DSK had diplomatic immunity or not.

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@BillRM,

A french Newspaper is reporting that after the state stopped watching her 24/7 on June 1 that Ophelia disappeared for ten days, and upon return claimed that that she had been gone to get treatment for the Ligament injury, which she had never till this time reported to the state or to medical staff. If this turns out to be true Vance is going to have even more problems than he already does, given that by July 3 he STILL had not dropped the charges against DSK.

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

It may turn out that Spendi's insights and imaginings are largely verified in this instance. The fact that, prejudgments of all kinds are sometimes correct, doesn't justify them or make them reliable guides to belief. There were, and perhaps still are, other possibilities, and closing one's mind to them is simply foolish ... or worse.

I know that doesn't say that my "insights and imaginings" have been unjustified, or are not guides to belief, but it gives that impression. If you can point out George what I have said that you consider a "prejudgment" I will make an effort to either defend it or apologise for it.

As it stands, impressionistically, I am accused of prejudgment by a similar technique, the assertion, that the cleaning woman employed against DSK.

I don't yet accept that a sexual event took place for sure. And I have offered a couple of other possibilities as well as alluding to others which I thought a little too advanced for readers of this thread. I thought at the time that DSK should have sat in Riker's rather than offer that over-excited female judge any grovellings over bail. His word of honour should have been sufficient. And he was ill advised to resign his exalted position.

Having the chief of the IMF in a cell on the word of an immigrant cleaning woman, never mind what we know about her now, and denying him his tie, is quite a sufficient embarrassment for the US justice system to be the laughing stock of the world's elites.

You're not an undercover socialist are you George? Are you one of those wet Nellies who think the law should be applied equally in trivial cases of this nature? It's a sentimental affectation which I admit can garner short term popularity in certain knitting circles.

Are senior naval officers subjected to the same process as the ratings regarding allegations of minor infringements of taste.

And, unlike you, I have not engaged in being wise after the event. Incidents like this one are always part of a much wider picture. And it is that picture I am interested in.

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@High Seas,

High Seas wrote:

No country is bound to extradite its own citizens under any bilateral or multilateral international treaty, as you know - so extradition issues are irrelevant. I agree with you that Cy Vance Jr. (a good guy, I knew his dad from working in Iran in the late '70s) did the best possible job in this godawful mess.

\

France refused for several years to extradite Ira Einhorn, a U.S. citizen who had been convicted of first degree murder in this country. There were many other like cases as well. France created the mistrust of their committment to reciprocal justice in this case and, in my view, the haste to apprehend DSK was fully justified, based on the initially known facts and the past behavior of the French government.

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@georgeob1,

What on earth does the past behaviour of the French government have to do with the the application of justice and common decency to the head of the IMF?

Calvin's method with Miguel Servetus might have been toned down but its essential hallmarks were there for all to see.

Tell me George--would the American navy have any experience of ships calling in foreign ports on goodwill missions and local girls in need of a few dollars to buy some extra milk powder for their babies being taken advantage of?

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

What on earth does the past behaviour of the French government have to do with the the application of justice and common decency to the head of the IMF?

In the hours and minutes adter the alleged event occurred I do not believe that the interests of justice and common decency required that our police allowed him to hastily escape our jurisdiction to a place that, inview of past behavior, would surely not returned him here.

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

In the hours and minutes adter the alleged event occurred I do not believe that the interests of justice and common decency required that our police allowed him to hastily escape our jurisdiction to a place that, inview of past behavior, would surely not returned him here.

He had the damn flight book for over a week so what the hell are you talking about with the hastily escape nonsense???????

And as I had posted they could had stop him leaving for a few days without arresting him and doing a damn perp walk on top of it!!!!!!!!!!

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@spendius,

The French have got the right idea. American justice is not trial by jury, but trial by Media. I know Gary McKinnon would be better of if he were French.

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@georgeob1,

He wasn't "hastily" escaping as I understand it. His flight had been booked for weeks. He was going to an IMF meeting scheduled for the following days. He was also going to the City of White Thighs and why he would bother with a cleaning woman from rural Guinea in such circumstances is a mystery to me. Especially one wearing tights. And with big teeth. And with Guinea being on the UN's Aids watch list. It's incredible.

Rider Haggard was stuck in South Africa with no alternatives.

I think miscegnation is a psychological category rather than a legal one.

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@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

[He had th damn flight book for over a week so what the hell are you talking about with the hastily escape nonsense???????

Gob1 is a fervernt anti European. He doesn't let something like facts get in the way of his pompous bombast.

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@spendius,

Vance was after cheap votes.

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

.... why he would bother with a cleaning woman from rural Guinea in such circumstances is a mystery to me. Especially one wearing tights. And with big teeth. And with Guinea being on the UN's Aids watch list. It's incredible.

I think miscegnation is a psychological category rather than a legal one.

Miscegenation? Is this a variant of the "abysmal taste" objection raised on the last page? Strauss-Kahn's lawyers did call the Guinean woman "butt ugly", but they didn't deny a sexual encounter of some sort took place. There's no accounting for tastes, and short-term criteria aren't the same as longer term...

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Quote:

But to me the most compelling and cautionary aspect of this debacle has been the way it demonstrates how deep and abiding our belief systems -- and hence our prejudices -- are. Our readiness to believe the worst about the wealthy and influential Dominique Strauss-Kahn is no different than our parallel instinct to believe the worst about anyone who too easily inhabits our pre-constructed cabinet of clichés: The misbehaving athlete, the industrious Chinese, the lazy, unemployed black youth, the narcissistic blogger. (Actually, the latter is largely accurate.) We live in a snap and app culture of the instant, so if anything our time for consideration -- let alone pondering -- is diminishing rapidly.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-hanft/you-can-be-rich-powerful-_b_888765.html

Oh yes, modern Americans are sure that they are not predjudiced, they congratulate themselves on their superiority ALL. THE. TIME. .....but it is a fantasy born of ignorance.

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@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

He had the damn flight book for over a week so what the hell are you talking about with the hastily escape nonsense???????

And as I had posted they could had stop him leaving for a few days without arresting him and doing a damn perp walk on top of it!!!!!!!!!!

Your understanding is as deficient as your grammar. The only way to "stop" him from leaving was to arrest him. Otherwise the law has no authority to restrict his movements. The fact that he had booked his flight days or weeks earlier had nothing to do with the fact that he was about to leave U.S. jurisdiction and therefore, given French practice with respect to extradition, the reach of U.S. justice.

I'll grant you the "Perp walk" before the excited media was an unnecessary and sadly commonplace thing for the police in New York.

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Is the Head of the IMF a Sex Criminal?

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