Wikileaks founder blasts reopening of rape probe
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has blasted Sweden's investigation into allegations against him for sexual misconduct after prosecutors reopened a probe into charges he raped a woman last month. "It appears to be highly irregular and some kind of legal circus," Assange told the TV service of newspaper Expressen on Thursday. “ …
Not one but two??
This whole Wikileaks thing sounds like a bad 70's cold war novel.
There are better and more low profile ways of going about your business if you really want to.
Soon there will be allegations of kiddie porn and bestiality. "All options are on the table" as the chief psychos' saying goes.
Meanwhile Tony is raking it in with some unapologetic pap and pushing war with Iran. Nice.
"My cultural values are to protect people's private lives and to never criticize women." (Assange, at around 4:00 in the interview.)
That's a strange way of not denying any of the allegations against him. He's a creep.
For someone who is such a crucader for openness, he has a way of not answering questions directly.
the type of language everybody falls back on when there under legal scrutiny.
Every thing he says could (presumably) to used to hammer nails into his already very nail(y) coffin.
He earlier said that the prosecutor's haven't presented the allegations, and he gave a general assertion [1:02] that he knows what he's done with his life, and therefore knows the accusations are baseless. I don't see that he can do much more before the detailed accusation(s) are presented.
[Joke] Though I am surprised he didn't twig that it was a setup when he mentioned, "I'm being hunted by the CIA", and the woman didn't immediately go to powder her nose and never come back.
and the Company is at 'im none of the people involved will be aware of
anything more than being "herded" towards a pre-conclusion of events.
In any case it is just as likely that a re-opening of the investigation is
way of clearing the air in Sweden. From the sounds of things there
is already ample evidence of a kultur-gap between Scandihoovia
and Oz.
Fubar -- stop because it's go till it's no.
Or grandstanding douche with a self control problem?
Now, the whole world get to decide as it's all played out in the public eye.
@"Now, the whole world get to decide as it's all played out in the public eye."
That's one of the most profoundly naive statements I've heard in years. There is so much you are missing behind the scenes. For example all the behind the scenes discussions of various powerful groups who will want to silence him any way they can and lets not forget high up people making deals and bringing in all the highly paid top lawyers who know how to twist the law to suit their goals. Then you also have the behind the scenes politics where pressure is applied from very high up people in the legal profession who want a conviction and are in near constant contact with political people. Plus that is before you even add in all the various security services high up people who will be pushing political people hard for any conviction.
Its like the old saying, its often not what you know, its who you know. Politics thrives on behind the scenes deals between powerful people and make no mistake, these powerful people don't want all their deals and mistakes to be leaked out in the open, so they will do all they can to silence high profile leaks like wikileaks.
Plus all that is before you even add in the possibility that they are using people to fabricate the circumstances of the case. For example it wouldn't be the first time in history a so called "honey trap" was used to blackmail or frame someone. (The fact we even have a phrase for " honey trap" shows its a tactic that has been used before, in fact used throughout history). Then you just bring in the high power lawyers to burn him based on their false testimony.
So Trevor_Pott, while you are finally waking up, try reading some of this link ... it lists people who have been trapped in this way.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clandestine_HUMINT_asset_recruiting#Love.2C_honeypots_and_recruitment
Even if there is an evil conspiracy, (something I deeply doubt,) I'm perfectly okay with Ass. being erased. I think he's an arrogant grandstanding twat who is perfectly willing to risk the lives of others for his own ego and fame. Maybe you should take some no-doz, and go look at other whistle blowing sites out there. Some have been around far longer than WIkileaks, and are run as less of a carnival. THOSE folks I have nothing but shitloads of respect for.
I’m sorry that my personal opinion of Ass. burns you so badly, but to me, the various giddy followers of this cult leader look no different than the zombie-like drones that hand on Jobs’ every word. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!
What completely astonishes me is the deification of this grandstanding little punk. I find it infinitely more plausible that he got a case of the dickileaks than that the “super-secret bad guys” decided to try to ruin his name. Understand that I don’t FOR A SECOND that they would try to run this guy into the ground. He is definitely a thorn in their side. I do however believe in their competence for more thoroughly than I believe in Ass. unassailable purity of spirit. He wouldn’t be the first dude who got a little famous, got a little full of himself, got a little gropey.
But hey, THUMBSDOWN ME BROTHER. I am a heathen unbeliever in both the cult of Jobs AND the cult of Ass. You must round up the others and vent your internet rage that I dare speak what I believe to be truth to the faithful. Blasphemer! Unbeliever! Heathen! WITCH!
Bah. Sheep.
The "carnival" you refer to (and feel so affronted by) is caused by the government and media furore, not by the people behind wikileaks who have up until recently tried very hard to stay anonymous. But clearly the attention they are getting is getting to you.
Also its not a conspiracy, corruption in positions of power is a fact of life. So Trevor_Pott your refusal to see this means you are either profoundly naive of what they are really like, or you troll for them, because no one else could be so blind to the way the world really works. (The people who seek power over others have had their Machiavellian ways well documented for over 500 years! … and a very common tactic is to undermine opponents like leaders of high profile groups openly opposing them, exactly like wikileaks).
If you still don't believe how corrupt the thinking is of many people in power, just look at the MP expenses corruption to see what they are really like, when they are not monitored by the people. (Look how long so many of the MP's couldn't even see they were doing anything wrong!). Finally after reporters spent over 5 years tying to get at the truth, through endless freedom of information requests to the government, who opposed us hearing the truth at every move, in the end, the only way to get at that real data was to finally steal it from the government!! ... yet they say they work for us!. Like hell they do. They dictate to us, and lie to us and obstruct and undermine everyone else, always to gain more power, or hold onto power, but they don't work for us. They lie and manipulate without end and we are suppose to just keep taking it. So they have to be policed by the people they say the represent and yes, they do undermine opponent groups like wikileaks, because it risks undermining them. Its bloody obvious to almost everyone they are seeking to undermine wikileaks by undermining one of the main people behind it. They don't want us to see the truth because it risks undermining their positions of power so they fear wikileaks.
So Trevor_Pott stop your straw man arguments because the fact still remains, that corruption exists in every society so it has to be openly policed or we rapidly end up living in a Plutocracy Dictatorship. But then there are some in society (the Narcissists) who secretly want a Dictatorship, as long as their kind are in power over others. That pattern keeps repeating throughout history and so it has to be policed against to keep stopping them getting their own way at the expense of others.
Better a grand standing junky than a spineless coward.
irregular, circus, smear ... sound like the business he into
Assange should skip the nicety of redaction and just dump all the embarrassing documents on th InterNet. The USA government has done so many wrongs in the conduct of these wars that there must be few actions that could embarrass them more.
The words of Lincoln, a person so espoused by Barack Obama, that included "government of the people, by the people, for the people" seems to have been forgotten as the US, British and other governments trample roughshod over their citizens be it people being kidnapped and held illegally or Blair twisting 'intelligence' so he could stick his nose up Bush' arse whilst sacrificing young British men and women for his ego.
The truth needs outing. The Second World War might have had it's atrocities but, except for the techniques, the present wars are more dirty and underhanded and rely on secrecy to hide the facts from 'the people'..
We need more people to emulate Assange if only to let governments know they can't hide behind alleged secret ratings.
What Abe really said was "Government of the people, by the corporations, for the corporations".
"sacrificing young British men and women"
How many women have been sacrificed in Iraqistan so far?
First, Assange isn't telling us anything we shouldn't already know about the general course of the war. Anyone who has been paying attention the last seven years finds no surprises. What Assange does do is provide the kind of tactical details that gets people killed.
Second, WWII was not pretty. "The Good Guys" firebombed civillians by the hundreds of thousands. Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not nice. There's some reason to think Churchill let Coventry be destroyed to protect the Ultra secret. There's speculation that Churchill began bombing civilian German targets to suck the Luftwaffe into atacking London in 1940; saving the RAF fields and Chain Home from destruction. Most battlefield atrocities went unreported. Nobody investigated friendly fire incidents, it was bad for morale.The Japanese were painted as sub-human brutes, needing extermination. Propganda and lies were standard. You could look it up. As General Sherman said: "War is sheer cruelty. You cannot refine it".
If my memory serves me correctly my original quote came from his Gettysburg Address where Abraham Lincoln gave what must be one of the best-known speeches in US history.by Lincoln during the American Civil War, in 1863 November, when he dedicated the Soldiers' National Cemetery located in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, four and a half months after the Union (Northern) armies defeated the Confederate (Southern) army at the defining Battle of Gettysburg.
I doubt if much of Bush or Blair rate a quote, although Churchill was as certainly as good as Lincoln.
"There's speculation that Churchill began bombing civilian German targets to suck the Luftwaffe into atacking London in 1940"
There maybe such speculation but it is untrue. Firstly, a German bomber first bombed London in error after failing to find their target. The RAF responded with a bombing raid on Berlin a few nights later.
However, this is irrelevant as Hitler and Mussolini are known to have discussed (in the 1930s) the bombing of the civilian population of Britain, in order to bring Britain to surrender terms.
The Japanese gave themselves their reputation by treating all non-Japanese as animals, not least Chinese civilians, for whom WWII started in 1935.
I agree with your main point though.
Hey
They are over there you prick.
You, I assume, are not.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3973281.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6146844.stm
etc.
is one woman (so far).
But I'm sure her family don't mind that being overlooked.
Lance Corporal Sarah Holmes, from 29 Postal Courier and Movement Regiment; Second Lieutenant Joanna Yorke Dyer, aged 24; Private Eleanor Dlugosz, Royal Army Medical Corps, aged 19; Flight Lieutenant Sarah-Jayne Mulvihill RAF, aged 32; Staff Sergeant Denise Michelle Rose, Royal Military Police, aged 34.
And many, many more.
Little wonder you hid behind "Anonymous Coward", the last word describes you perfectly.
Whilst I disagree with the reasons for the wars, your two posts show:
(1) You are despicable;
(2) I am sure the family of the only woman, you claim, appreciates recognition of her sacrifice;
(3) You can't count.
That may be so.
However, the RAF was pretty much on its knees at the time, facing a choice of either losing the farm to airfield bombing or pulling the fighter bases back north of London (and a handy distance from any invasion from a German perspective).
The germans made an official apology for their accidental bombing within the exclusion zone, but Churchill bombed Berlin anyway. You don't have to be a genius to work out that for the outcome of the Battle of Britain, the London Blitz was the best possible thing to happen for the British, short of the Lutwaffe deciding to stay at home en masse. I personally reckon that presented with the opportunity and knowing that both Hitler and Goering had so much by way of promises riding on it, Churchill took the obvious course of action.
Chain Home is another issue. Actually here, the radar installations were rarely targetted after an initial assault by Stukas. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, they're damned difficult to seriously damage with anything bar a dive-bomber as precision bombing is a must. The Stukas suffered horrendous losses in the initial raids and the dive-bomber variant of the Ju-88 was still some time away. Secondly, the Lutwaffe found that after those inital raids to knock out radar, their bomber formations were still attacked in numbers by RAF fighters. The Observer Corps were able to a do a sterling job advising of the position of Germn formations in real time. The trick the Luftwaffe missed was that radar gave *early* warning, allowing the fighters to get a break and rearm/refuel between raids, while still being up and ready in time to intercept the next raid. Thus the limited strength of RAF fighter command was able to function in a manner as effective as a fighter force of around three times the size running continuous patrols. This is why the Luftwaffe continually issued vast overestimations of the strength of Fighter Command.
"What Assange does do is provide the kind of tactical details that gets people killed."
Which people? The people with the heavy artillery and the itchy trigger fingers, or the people without body armour going about their daily business?
"Which people? The people with the heavy artillery and the itchy trigger fingers, or the people without body armour going about their daily business?"
Certainly many thousands of the latter. By failing to obfuscate/redact data Assange has effectively identified many locals that may have provided some degree of assistance to the US forces and their allies. They are now targets for reprisals.
Maybe there's an argument that the information revealed was so startling that it could justify the civilian deaths that will inevitably result. My impression is that Assange didn't bother thinking this through or (more likely) doesn't give a shit as long as he gets lots of publicity.
Either way, the guy's a major asshole.
AC: What Abe really said was "Government of the people, by the corporations, for the corporations".
Load of rubbish.
Politicians have a fundamental obligation to not be swayed by money. Does it happen anyway? All the time, unfortunately. We elect people who we think are going to do the right thing, but we rarely find a person that has the integrity to not be bribed, coerced, or strong-armed by the so-called big evil corporations.
-OR-
Could it be that politicians can be just as big and evil as corporations??
How about you do some research into what the Japanese did in WW2 ,google "rape of Nanking" "Comfort Women" two name but too.
The where pictured as sub human scum, becuase thats was the conduct of the Japanese army in WW2 you fuckwit!
Why dont you ask the koreans and the chinese and the philipines what they think of the WW2 japanese conduct!
I will admit to having had sexual intercourse with a number of witty women; so I suppose I must accept the compliment. I'd hazard I know more about what happened between July 7, 1937 and September 2, 1945 than you do.The Germans were at least as awful as the Japanese in that war; yet the entire German nation was not depicted as less than human. So it doesn't have much to do with actual behavior. And neither incineration of enemy civilians, nor the 70,000 or so Frenchmen killed by their liberators, made the Allied nations sub-human. It was a useful racism to despise the Japanese as a people; a useful distinction to parse the difference between Nazis and ordinary Germans. The point I was making was that it was not a very clean war; contrary to what (the poster I replied to) claimed. War is an inherently ghastly business; all the worse when undertaken incompetently.
He may well have a "deadman" device that, if he doesn't take a regular action, will "skip the nicety of redaction and just dump all the embarrassing documents on th InterNet". In his situation I probably would; and I'd make sure that anyone I thought likely to arrange a traffic accident for me would at least think it likely I'd done so.
Look at Julian Assange. Now look at the charges. Now look at Julian Assange. Really?
The charges are now diamonds! Anything is possible with black-ops.
I'm on a high-horse.
*whistles*
(As if it wasn't there already.)
There's a really high probability that this is all politically motivated BS. Vague charges, all hinting at moral issues -- its sooo retro you'd think we're back in the 50s. Expect the media to run pieces that use a fair bit of innuendo to not only smear this guy but anyone who dares to defend him. Its so sick.
I'm guessing you're not a lawyer?
I'm not either, but I reckon Julian Assange needs to keep it buttoned right now and do as his lawyer suggests.
Presumably, someone would like to hamper his getting protection from the Swedish legal system.
He may be a little creepy, I imagine I would be in his situation. That doesn't make him a liar though.
I guess he'll be open about this situation when it becomes safe to do so.
I don't understand what any one person has against this guy. I can understand how a system of control can resent his actions, but surely, in the long run, exposing nefarious behaviour by civil servants is in the best interests of a modern democracy.
Maybe there's a conspiracy to get him. Maybe he's part of the conspiracy. Wikileaks isn't the most open organization in the world, you know (see Cryptome's coverage. Short version: Show us the money.)
Or maybe he's a weirdo who has some serious mommy issues.
No, I'm not a lawyer. The one thing he did not do is deny the chargers against him. If I was wrongfully accused of a crime and my lawyer said "Don't say you didn't do it." I'd probably get a new lawyer.
I don't know whether Julian Assange is on the level or not, but if he was, wouldn't it make sense to try and discredit him any way possible? Otoh, if he was a grubby piece of work, threatening to publish lots of classified documents seems like an odd way to defend himself and mitigate damage. If he was truly crazy, he might go that path, but I don't get the sense that he's crazy. So ... what seems to be going on?
he has nothing to fear from The Truth, now does he? Or is he saying that the Swedes may be influenced by, ahem, outside parties? And, frankly, if it's so easy for 'outside parties' to influence Swedish justice in the first place, why does he want to try to hide out there, presumably from the above-mentioned 'outside parties' whom he has just gone to vast lengths to _Really Piss Off_? What, exactly, did he expect when he poked the tiger in the ass with a sharp stick _before_ making sure that the cage door was locked? Silly boy.
A country with laws specifically protecting journalists and whistle blowers.
If you were in this guy's boots, where would you feel safer? In Sweden? In -consider libel laws - England? In most 1st World countries where political corruption is rampant? In the USA?.
Yeah, Sweden it's not totally safe, but better than the alternatives - kidnapping, extradition, GITMO, torture chamber in a 'friendly country', shallow grave, jail or several of the above combined.
Depressing.
but he should have have made sure that he was all squared away inside Sweden _before_ poking the tiger. Now he's got _problems_ and they're going to use any means, fair or unfair, to give him more for the rest of his life... which might not be that long, depending on how pissed they really are. And they're plenty pissed. They're gonna look up everything he's done or might have done or might have been rumored to have been near for the last 20 years and use it; stuff that would have been ignored as too petty for use in normal times will be dug out and polished up a bit and used. The way I read it, he did _something_ with those two women which made them willing to nail him to the wall. Whether it was really rape doesn't matter; what matters is that they're willing to _say_ it was... and he has to defend himself. And no-one would have paid the least attention to the two women if they hadn't been dug up. And I'm sure that there's a lot more coming.
He poked the tiger in the ass _before_ locking the cage door, and now he's got an angry tiger chasing him and nowhere to hide. That was _stupid_. The reaction of those in power to his little revelations was absolutely predictable. I certainly saw trouble coming; I didn't know the exact way, but as soon as I saw his blather about how he expected the Pentagon to _help_ him sort the crap I _knew_ he was in for the high jump. And, frankly, I suspect that we ain't seen _nothing_ yet. They've got a nice barrel of shit prepped for him and they're gonna use it all... and the Swedes aren't gonna want to have him anywhere near them, to ensure that none of the shit splashes on _them_. The Powers that Be are gonna make an Awful Example out of him, and out of anyone who blabbed to him, to show what happens when you poke the tiger without taking proper precautions _before_ the fact.
And all for 'exposing' stuff that anyone who has been paying attention (me, for instance) had a pretty good idea was happening anyway. So now we have names, dates and places. BFD. Interested persons might want to look up, for example, what Gen Vandergrift, USMC, later Commandant of the Marine Corps, told his troops prior to the landings on Tarawa. Or what Dudley Morton did on his second to last combat patrol. (USS WAHOO failed to return from his _last_ combat patrol...) This stuff happens _all the time_. It _always_ happens. It will _continue_ to happen. 'Exposing' it will achieve _nothing_... other than pissing off the Powers That Be.
Silly boy.
But when push comes to shove, our legal system has shown itself to be eminently susceptible to influence by the big guns, whether financial, political, or military. Our laws allow for surveillance of our email messages (but, our politicos say, only if they cross the border, which, of course, they almost always do, which the politicos don't mention), and our beak corps is so full of people who belong to organizations sponsored by content-rights holders that a independent judge couldn't be found for the Pirate Bay trials (if, indeed, one was searched for at all). So neither Mr Assange nor others should be unduly impressed by the state of Sweden ; in reality, alas, it's not much better than that attributed by Shakespeare to our southern neighbour....
Henri
From what I gather he was stalked by one of the women, then shagged her. The other, he shagged too at some party, both consensual, and it was something to do with his blazon manner and lack of or burst condom that annoyed them both.
However I read that in The Sun online so who the eck knows.
What, did he not expect to be discredited, given what he is involved with? He should consider himself lucky the current allegation is with females of a legal age.
Tell you what, if I was the guy running a site like wikileaks, I wouldn't tell a damned soul.
... is the one they never know about, I'd keep it quiet too if I ran Wikileaks.
I like the idea of wikileaks but I think Assange is a glory hunter and a proper twat personality wise, if this is a smear campaign then Assange has only his self too blame for leaving himself so open to such an attack.
And how do you know he hasn't been paid a very large sum of money to act as the founder of wikileaks?
Actually, placing himself in the public eye offers a little more protection that anonymity. If he's bumped off while in the public eye, it would look rather suspicious. Bumping off Joe Whothehell and getting away with it would be easy.
However, our generation is heavily brainwashed to not ask questions via the "conspiracy theory" meme. Anyone who proposes serious impropriety on the part of those in power is "insane". This allowed Blair to get away with bumping off David Kelly in a ludicrously blatant "suicide", among many other things. I personally think he could be hung,drawn and quartered in public and people would make excuses and ignore it.
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/U.S._Intelligence_planned_to_destroy_WikiLeaks,_18_Mar_2008
The possibility that current employees or moles within DoD or elsewhere in the U.S. government are providing sensitive or classified information to WikiLeaks.org cannot be ruled out. It concocts a plan to fatally marginalize the organization.
Mmmmmmmmm
