Sex, lies, and Julian Assange

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

I'm not so sure; most of the stuff he published was embarrassing to diplomats, rather than seriously compromising for intelligence services. I fancy most people may have concluded that denying the little rat* publicity may be the unkindest cut of all.

Hope he likes soup and rice, with the ocasional treats of guinea pig and aguardiente...

* yes, I changed my mind about him, a while back. If you never change your mind it gets stale...

[Kaa]

If they wanted to do that, it wouldn't be hard.

Yes, they wanted it and lookie here! it happened :-) I don't think they're satisfied, though.

Kaa

[TomF]

...* yes, I changed my mind about him, a while back. If you never change your mind it gets stale...

Hmm. I admit, I've not looked into the details of what he's accused of in Sweden since the initial furor and blog-fest. I am interested to read in an earlier post by someone else that a UK court has since ruled that what Assange is accused of in Sweden, would also be a prosecutable offence in the UK. That's news to me, but it does put a different slant on things.

I've never changed my mind on the notion that Assange is personally a weasel ... both in what was reported respecting his treatment of the women, and frankly about Wikileaks itself. I've rather large ambiguous moral feelings about that whole Wikileaks enterprise ... in some cases, I think there's legit reasons to have official secrets. Even in peacetime. In many other cases, official secrets are kept in order to avoid colossal political embarassment ... the current Canadian government is masterful at managing their political fallout this way. Wikileaks appears to recognize few such nuances.

What made you shift opinions on Assange's extradition stuff, Andrew? And what might they have shifted to ... either regarding the Swedish sex charges, or the potential Sweden-to-US extradition which he fears is in the cards?

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

When he first arrived in Britain, in 2010, I thought his was a deserving case.

I have gradually come to see him as merely rather silly, and a man who seeks publicity at almost any price.

I think he should be in Sweden, a country that he applied for permanent residence in as recently as 2010, and I cannot see how anyone can think that he is in greater danger of being extradited to the USA from Sweden, which does not have a one sided extradition treaty with the USA, than he is in Britain, which has a treaty so one sided that autistic computer hackers get extradited and dumped in US jails for looking for UFOs.

He sold his autobiography for a million pounds and complained about that, and has spent most of the part two years on the country estates of English aristocrats.

I'm not too impressed with his treatment of Bradley Manning, either.

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

I would expect some parts of some intelligence services to have a deep and burning desire to make Mr.Assange's life... difficult :-)

Kaa

If Assange is suspected of felony only the FBI has authority to enter the case. And with a media darling like Assange they would have to tread lightly.

[WX]

If Assange is suspected of felony only the FBI has authority to enter the case. And with a media darling like Assange they would have to tread lightly.

He is not a US citizen and if he has committed any crime it was not on US soil. The fact that he may be a slimy creep is irrelevant to the case.
If you ignore the Wikileaks connection you have to ask yourself, would 3 countries be going to so much trouble and expense.
Bradly Manning is a separate case and one that should be getting far more publicity because of the way he is being confined. Which in any other country would have the US jumping up and down screaming harsh and inhumane treatment!

[MiddleAgesMan]

https://apps.facebook.com/theguardia...pes=news.reads

[PeterSibley]

Assange is a creep; no big surprise there as he is evidently a mother's boy.

The Ecuadorians can feed him until he gets bored, or, more likely, they get bored with him.

As to whether "what he did was rape assuming that he did it", the answer is obviously "yes", even by Australian standards.

The definition of rape seems to have twisted rather .

[The Bigfella]

I dunno what MAM was trying (and failing) to link... but presumably it was this, by The Guardian's columnist, Hadley Freeman.

RAPE seems to be in the air these days, what with the Republican Party in the US, certain devotees of Julian Assange, and lazy comedians in Edinburgh, all talking quite a lot about it without apparently having a clue what it is. So let's clear things up. Welcome to Rape: The Idiot's Primer.

It is testament to the determination of some folk to bend reality to their preferred viewpoint that there are so many intriguing words around these days for rape to make it seem, I don't know, less ''rapey''. Two years ago ''sex by surprise'', nobody's favourite pudding (''Would madam prefer the apple pie a la mode, the tiramisu or the sex by surprise?''), was the hot new coinage in reference to Assange. But now there's a whole slew in the mix.

The scientifically challenged Republican politician Todd Akin referred in a now-infamous interview to something called ''legitimate rape'', which, strangely, Akin seemed to use to refer to a particularly nasty rape because in those extreme circumstances ''the female body has ways of shutting [their reproductive organs] down''. Now, leaving aside the question of how on earth a 65-year-old man with six children can be so clueless about female biology, this kind of differentiation between what's a Proper Rape and what's merely a Fake Rape is very popular in certain circles.

The term Akin was groping for was not the contradictory ''legitimate rape'' but the tautological ''forcible rape''. This was the term employed in the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, which Akin co-sponsored, to refer to rapes involving a woman being violently assaulted, as those are the only rapes that count, apparently.
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So if you're drugged and don't put up a fight resulting in you getting a black eye, good news! Your rape didn't count. Bad news! You won't get help paying for an abortion - not that you'll need one, mind, because pregnancies through rape don't happen, of course.

Eventually, the term was dropped from the bill - which passed - but it just so happens that Akin's co-sponsor on that measure was Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan.

Akin later apologised for having ''misspoke'' about ''legitimate rape'' but the truth is all he had done was articulate the ignorance and misogyny rife in his party, as well as the even more common belief that some rapes count and some are acts that ''sluts'' bring upon themselves.

It's not just politicians. Whoopi Goldberg once said Roman Polanski hadn't committed ''rape-rape'' back in 1977, although seeing that a 13-year-old child told how he drugged and sodomised her, I would hate to know what Goldberg considers actual rape.

This week the British MP George Galloway took to his video blog, Good Night with George Galloway, to defend Assange. He insisted what Assange is accused of ''isn't rape'' (it is), that all he is guilty of is ''bad sexual etiquette'' (George Galloway: today's Emily Post) and he added for good measure ''not everybody needs to be asked prior to each insertion'', especially if you're ''already in the sex game with them''. That's right, he used the word ''insertion''. Sweet dreams.

This is just a little reminder to all of the Assange fans out there (Assolytes? Assheads?) that Assange is not being charged for anything to do with WikiLeaks.

Despite what he insinuated in his Evita-like balcony speech on Sunday from the Ecuadorean embassy in London, Assange is dodging rape accusations from two women. Not WikiLeaks. Women. Same first letter. Different things. Also, while you can - contrary to other certain beliefs - become pregnant if you are raped, you cannot become pregnant from WikiLeaks. Just to clarify. Next!

Every year hundreds of thousands of women are sexually assaulted. More hard figures: 99.99 per cent of all rape jokes aren't funny (we'll get to the .01 per cent that are in a tick); 100 per cent of attention-seeking, imagination-deficient comedians will make at least one rape joke in their lives.

As Tanya Gold recently wrote in TheGuardian, rape jokes are quite la mode de la saison up at the Edinburgh Festival right now, but they have never been out of fashion on comedy circuits. The reliably unfunny ''comedian'' Daniel Tosh got in a bit of trouble earlier this summer for making one at the expense of an audience member (''Wouldn't it be funny if that girl got raped by, like, five guys right now?'') and the only amazing thing about that incident was that he was reprimanded for it.
If edgy comedy is supposed to provide an enlightening perspective on a horrible aspect of life then nearly all rape jokes fail, not least because they are often at the expense of the rape victim. The only funny rape-ish joke I've ever heard was from US comedian John Mulaney, who mused on how women see him as a threat late at night, ''and it's weird because, like, I'm still afraid of being kidnapped''.

I find that more enlightening and funnier than Jimmy Carr's ''What do nine out of 10 people enjoy? A gang rape.'' It also - unlike anything said by Akin, Ryan, Galloway, Carr or Assange's fans - shows awareness of the victim as opposed to focusing on the alleged (or, in this case, imagined) attacker. That's how you talk about rape, see? You remember that the victim is an actual person.

Man, can you imagine the hilarity if Carr and Galloway were ever to share a room? I honestly think my reproductive organs just shut down.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politi...#ixzz24KAFEM6Q

[Stiletto]

Our TV last night showed an interview with John Pilger who has taken up Assange's cause.( No surprise there)

Pilger reckons the two women withdrew their complaint of rape.

[B_B]

...Pilger reckons the two women withdrew their complaint of rape.

Neither woman made that assertion. It was the policeman's interpretation of what was said. At least one of the women refused to sign her statement to the Police when she discovered they were planning on laying charges.

[MiddleAgesMan]

I dunno what MAM was trying (and failing) to link... but presumably it was this, by The Guardian's columnist, Hadley Freeman.

The link works as posted but perhaps this one will work better for little fellas; the author is NOT Hadley Freeman, BTW:

https://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/p/39qc8

If that doesn't work you probably have a serious Facebook problem, in which case you could google the following phrase: "The Assange case has sparked much comment about Ecuador and its president – most of it deeply unenlightened"

[The Bigfella]

The link works as posted but perhaps this one will work better for little fellas; the author is NOT Hadley Freeman, BTW:

https://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/p/39qc8

If that doesn't work you probably have a serious Facebook problem, in which case you could google the following phrase: "The Assange case has sparked much comment about Ecuador and its president – most of it deeply unenlightened"

I don't have a serious Facebook problem... I'm just not interested in signing up for that App. I see you are still operating in DH mode and slinging insults. Isn't it time you grew up?

[The Bigfella]

Neither woman made that assertion. It was the policeman's interpretation of what was said. At least one of the women refused to sign her statement to the Police when she discovered they were planning on laying charges.

That's funny, the lawyer who appeared in the OP is acting for both women.

.... and this is a translation of (part) of the interview with the woman who "refused to sign her statement"... the "I" being the interviewer. Sounds to me like the "refused to sign" is yet another lie

Sofia and I were notified during the interrogation that Julian Assange had been arrested in absentia. Sofia had difficulty concentrating after that news, whereby I made the judgement it was best to terminate the interrogation. But Sofia had time anyway to explain that Assange was angry with her. I didn't have time to get any further details about why he was angry with her or how this manifested itself. And we didn't have time to get into what else happened afterwards. The interrogation was neither read back to Sofia nor reviewed for approval by her but Sofia was told she had the opportunity to do this later.

[nw_noob]

Nobody's said it yet, but maybe there's an unconsidered possibility here.

Assange has been given a world stage, and in it he has asked the world's most militaristic superpower, as well as one of it's most liberal minded allies for the simple assurance that he will not be arrested and held indefinitely for undeclared crimes pertaining to his past actions with Wikileaks. Neither of the two countries are willing to tell him he's safe from a dungeon. If that's not a basic human right that the UN keeps stats on, well, it should be. Every human should be entitled to step foot outside their safe home and not fear imprisonment in a sleep-deprivation dungeon. Both the US and Sweden should be able to give assurance to anyone that they will not cause such a fate to befall them. Neither is willing to do that for Assange.

[MiddleAgesMan]

Preazactly.

Thank you, noob.

[B_B]

That's funny, the lawyer who appeared in the OP is acting for both women.

.... and this is a translation of (part) of the interview with the woman who "refused to sign her statement"... the "I" being the interviewer. Sounds to me like the "refused to sign" is yet another lie

Sofia and I were notified during the interrogation that Julian Assange had been arrested in absentia. Sofia had difficulty concentrating after that news, whereby I made the judgement it was best to terminate the interrogation. But Sofia had time anyway to explain that Assange was angry with her. I didn't have time to get any further details about why he was angry with her or how this manifested itself. And we didn't have time to get into what else happened afterwards. The interrogation was neither read back to Sofia nor reviewed for approval by her but Sofia was told she had the opportunity to do this later.

Either way, the witness statement was not signed (not read back to her, not reviewed by her - so the Policeman's notes may be wrong, very wrong). While you may feel the need to defend this level of incompetence I sure as shooting hope your clients get better service...

Have you bothered retracting your allegation that Assange ran away from Sweden without engaging the Police...or are you forgetting to defend your uninformed b.s.

[The Bigfella]

Either way, the witness statement was not signed (not read back to her, not reviewed by her - so the Policeman's notes may be wrong, very wrong). While you may feel the need to defend this level of incompetence I sure as shooting hope your clients get better service...

Have you bothered retracting your allegation that Assange ran away from Sweden without engaging the Police...or are you forgetting to defend your uninformed b.s.

Eh wot?

Where's this statement I'm supposed to retract? I think I'm as lost as you appear to be.... so, do me a favour and point me to the supposed comment please.

[The Bigfella]

Nobody's said it yet, but maybe there's an unconsidered possibility here.

Assange has been given a world stage, and in it he has asked the world's most militaristic superpower, as well as one of it's most liberal minded allies for the simple assurance that he will not be arrested and held indefinitely for undeclared crimes pertaining to his past actions with Wikileaks. Neither of the two countries are willing to tell him he's safe from a dungeon. If that's not a basic human right that the UN keeps stats on, well, it should be. Every human should be entitled to step foot outside their safe home and not fear imprisonment in a sleep-deprivation dungeon. Both the US and Sweden should be able to give assurance to anyone that they will not cause such a fate to befall them. Neither is willing to do that for Assange.

Preazactly.

Thank you, noob.

Assange wants any and all crimes he may have committed pardoned eh?

What a joke.

I've run a listed media company and I can assure you, no country is going to give me any similar assurance either. I was careful with what we published. Assange wasn't. Its time for him to take responsibility for his actions.

[B_B]

Eh wot?

Where's this statement I'm supposed to retract? I think I'm as lost as you appear to be.... so, do me a favour and point me to the supposed comment please.

Page one - your little 'scenario' which completely (intentionally?) mis-characterizes what actually happened. As to you being lost - on this issue, most assuredly.

[The Bigfella]

Page one - your little 'scenario' which completely (intentionally?) mis-characterizes what actually happened. As to you being lost - on this issue, most assuredly.

Oh, so if an analogy isn't 100% identical to Assange's case, it can't be used? The point of the little scenario was to give another perspective. There's no need to retract it. I'm sorry though that your thinking is so inflexible as to not be able to deal with a few differences.

[WX]

Oh, so if an analogy isn't 100% identical to Assange's case, it can't be used? The point of the little scenario was to give another perspective. There's no need to retract it. I'm sorry though that your thinking is so inflexible as to not be able to deal with a few differences.

is that what it was? I thought that is what you believed happened.

[The Bigfella]

is that what it was? I thought that is what you believed happened.

You aren't down at that comprehension level too are you? Here's what I posted....


"If someone from overseas allegedly commited a serious crime (I'm amazed at those who don't seem to think rape is a serious crime... and who take the word of the media as gospel)... fled the scene of the alleged crime... say New York, for instance.... and the authorities found that person in a third country and requested their extradition to the US to face trial.... would you be happy for them to be "interviewed" overseas.... or would you want them back to face trial?"

[PeterSibley]

Oh, so if an analogy isn't 100% identical to Assange's case, it can't be used? The point of the little scenario was to give another perspective. There's no need to retract it. I'm sorry though that your thinking is so inflexible as to not be able to deal with a few differences.

The point is the little scenario is deceptive, purposely or accidentally?

[The Bigfella]

The point is the little scenario is deceptive, purposely or accidentally?

Good god, its a hair-splitting Donnathon, is it?

The point is, he's fought a legal extradition process by Sweden... and lost. The Poms think he should be extradited. The Swedes think he should be extradited.... He's had his day in court over that... and he lost. He's just a coward. If the affidavits are right, he's a cad too.

[WX]

You aren't down at that comprehension level too are you? Here's what I posted....


"If someone from overseas allegedly commited a serious crime (I'm amazed at those who don't seem to think rape is a serious crime... and who take the word of the media as gospel)... fled the scene of the alleged crime... say New York, for instance.... and the authorities found that person in a third country and requested their extradition to the US to face trial.... would you be happy for them to be "interviewed" overseas.... or would you want them back to face trial?"

Rape is a very serious crime, it is also a highly emotive term to be using on someone because they didn't use a condom. Rape implies non consensual sex with violence or threat...this is not what happened. Also he did not flee the scene, he was told no charges would be laid and he was free to go to the UK.

[The Bigfella]

Rape is a very serious crime, it is also a highly emotive term to be using on someone because they didn't use a condom. Rape implies non consensual sex with violence or threat...this is not what happened. Also he did not flee the scene, he was told no charges would be laid and he was free to go to the UK.

.... and when the women exercised their right to have a higher up official review the case, Sweden decided he should be extradited, so they issued a warrant. Assange fought the extradition and lost. Neither you nor I know the real evidence, but from what I understand, consent with a condom is not consent without a condom. Sex without consent is rape. If a woman withdraws consent, even if you're on the vinegar stroke... its rape if you continue.

[PeterSibley]

Good god, its a hair-splitting Donnathon, is it?

The point is, he's fought a legal extradition process by Sweden... and lost. The Poms think he should be extradited. The Swedes think he should be extradited.... He's had his day in court over that... and he lost. He's just a coward. If the affidavits are right, he's a cad too.

and the State Dept is grateful to all.

[skuthorp]

He's caused at least 3 governments that went to war on a pack of lies, killed thousands, covered up atrocities, rendered people to 3rd countries for 'interrogation' and and keep captives indefinitely a great deal of embarasment by his disclosures. How many people have been killed by those disclosures? Its a fit up. The women may have a complaint but I don't trust the Swedish govt, and the US has demonstrated that it's not to be relied on in these matters.

[WX]

He's caused at least 3 governments that went to war on a pack of lies, killed thousands, covered up atrocities, rendered people to 3rd countries for 'interrogation' and and keep captives indefinitely a great deal of embarasment by his disclosures. How many people have been killed by those disclosures? Its a fit up. The women may have a complaint but I don't trust the Swedish govt, and the US has demonstrated that it's not to be relied on in these matters.

And HE's the COWARD!

[The Bigfella]

What has any of that got to do with his sexual improprieties? Reading the affidavits, if they are found to be true, he's a turd. I don't give a damn if he's Saint Peter's nephew... if he did rape them, cut his nuts off.

[skuthorp]

Convenient position and at least consistent. And I'm not excusing his stupid or maybe criminal behaviour either but many men are driven by their 'nuts'. Anne says, "Idiot, what was he thinking?" but booze probably played it's part in that menage a trois.

[The Bigfella]

Yeah... it did in the rape case where I was foreman of the jury too. That wasn't our concern. We simply judged him on the evidence. The judge sentenced him and took that into account, along with other factors. That guy got 2 years 8 months.

[PeterSibley]

Hell, he probably thought it was sex, not an ambush.

[The Bigfella]

Hell, he probably thought it was sex, not an ambush.

Sheesh, this thread is well named.

It was never an ambush. It was sex. Old Jules, who couldn't get it up, probably due to too much thinking about condoms, thought it was about him. It wasn't.

[PeterSibley]

It was never an ambush.

You know that do you ?

[skuthorp]

I don't reckon an ambush. The subject came up at the wedding reception yesterday, the net is all pervasive. The younger women reckoned it was 'trophy hunting', ie, find someone famous - say Assange or a footballer - and have sex with him. They tell me that some girls keep a record. Success, fame and money, the big attractors.
Of course that's evolution at work, instinctively looking for security for offspring etc.

[The Bigfella]

It had exactly that written all over it. Trophy hunting. Read the text messages and tell me different. That said, the trophy then decided to play by his rules, not theirs.

I see the same thing here in Thailand every damn day, btw. Substitute farang and thai woman and there it is. Power gets abused.

[MiddleAgesMan]

A retired UK diplomat has something to say about the threat to storm the embassy not long after Assange found refuge there but before asylum was granted:

http://wikileaks.org/Statement-on-U-...tions-and.html

The statement:


Thursday 24th August, 01:00 BST

Formal statement by Craig Murray former U.K. Ambassador and career diplomat, August 23, 2012, on the Ecuadorian embassy siege in London.
My name is Craig John Murray. I am a retired British diplomat. I was a member of Her Majesty’s Diplomatic Service for over 20 years, and a member of the Senior Management Structure of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for over six years.
As anybody who works a long time in any one organisation, I have a great many friends there, some of whom are now very senior officials. And as is natural, they sometimes discuss matters with their old colleague.
I arrived in the UK from a trip abroad on 15 August 2012 and was immediately contacted by a very senior official within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office who was very concerned. He had knowledge that an attempt by the British authorities to force entry to the Embassy of Ecuador was possibly imminent. I suggested that this must be impossible, and he said that unfortunately it was not. He said that he had been party to formal discussions over a three week period between different British government departments on the legality of such a move. It had concluded that the provisions of the Diplomatic Premises Act of 1987 gave the authorities the domestic power to do this, in spite of the Vienna Convention of 1961.
My ex-colleague went on to say that he understood the government intended to act quickly to pre-empt any grant of political asylum to Mr Assange by the government of Ecuador. If there were any formal international recognition of Mr Assange as a political refugee, it might complicate matters.
He also said there was tremendous discomfort at this development within the British diplomatic service because of the potential exposure of British embassies and diplomats abroad to similar action.
I asked how on earth such an illegal decision could have been reached. My ex-colleague said that political pressure exerted by the administration of the United States of America on Mr William Hague and Mr David Cameron had outweighed the views of British diplomats.
I published a brief account of this conversation on my blog the following morning, in an effort to add to the pressures which might avert the government from such an illegal act.


Would the WM have an opinion regarding attempts by the USA to influence an ally to throw decades of diplomatic precedent to the wind?

[WX]

Sheesh, this thread is well named.

It was never an ambush. It was sex. Old Jules, who couldn't get it up, probably due to too much thinking about condoms, thought it was about him. It wasn't.

Rape, or just plain sex can be difficult when that happens.

[PeterSibley]

I don't reckon an ambush. The subject came up at the wedding reception yesterday, the net is all pervasive. The younger women reckoned it was 'trophy hunting', ie, find someone famous - say Assange or a footballer - and have sex with him. They tell me that some girls keep a record. Success, fame and money, the big attractors.
Of course that's evolution at work, instinctively looking for security for offspring etc.

and it would certainly make Assange open to approach .... and ambush.