(edit title) Is Swedish Government Out To Destroy Assange? Or Is It Just A Diversion To Help Him Out? Options

[entry]

And Entry's characterization of The Guardian as quite leftist and Marxist seems a bit dated.

What would be the updated realistic term that would not be offensive to other readers who do not put images of Che, Stalin or Hitler on our T-Shirts be that would describe The Guardian media bazaar?

[cogito]

Trowbridge,
I don't actually have any tax problems--except on a theoretical level.

On Assange, I have to say that Entry is most persuasive. But as you know, I normally disagree with what you say, while admiring the way you say it.
But what do I know? I'm still back at the basics, wondering what's wrong with those two women who accuse J.A. of rape. I mean, what kind of woman takes a creep like Assange in her bed to begin with?

[Bender B Rodriquez]

Your comment "strange part[...] it will be impossible to extradite him without UK consent due to the terms..." did clarify the extradition but that is an issue that ... (show full quote)

Your comment "strange part[...] it will be impossible to extradite him without UK consent due to the terms..." did clarify the extradition but that is an issue that should have no weight in the extradition of Assange to Sweden regarding the criminal indictments filed. ... (hide full quote)

Yes, of course it should have no weight, since in any case it is up to the UK to decide any extradition requests from the US.

My point was that people who claim that Assange would be more easily extradited from Sweden to the US than from the UK to the US are simply wrong. The UK must give its consent no matter if Assange is in the UK or Sweden. So to claim that this has anything to do with the Swedish arrest warrant is ridiculous.

[byke]

Under Swedish law ....

Since the server at the time was located in Sweden, would it have technically wrong not to release information relating to withholding informationor slating to crimes that have been committed?

[Gamla Hälsingebock]

Why is the onus on the male to wear contraceptives?

[NebulaStardust]

Now that the problems of Julian Assange and Wilileaks are entering a new phase where there will be a final solution to whether he is extradicted back here - though this will t ... (show full quote)

Now that the problems of Julian Assange and Wilileaks are entering a new phase where there will be a final solution to whether he is extradicted back here - though this will take even more time if he appeals it to the European Court of Human Rights - shouldn't we have a general discussion about it all?

While most people think that it is a sinister plot, where the Swedish authorities are complict in wanting to really get him - ultimately sending him to the States to face trial for espionage, and possible execution, I suspect that it is really to get him off the hook for having outed the leakers of the Afghan File, the covert operations where the details were leaked by British GCHQ operators Gareth Williams and Gudrun Loftus who were killed for having done so when threatening to take their secret information further afield, especially to Putin's Moscow.

The failure to investigate their murders, and the dragging out of Assange's and Wikileaks' problems are too coincidental, and delayed resolving not to be connected. British authorities are still delaying the inquest over Williams clear murder while the press is rampant with stories about it trying to get Assange when there is no clear connection between him and Bradley Manning, no jurisdiction for the US to try Assange, an Australian, as an American spy, no serious basis for thinking that he will be convicted of rape here, resulting in no chance of his going to the States for face such a charge, etc.

For the other side of the story, see John Pilger's article in today's Guardian about Assange's apparent problems.

He, I think, has fallen for the wrong conspiracy.

What do you think? ... (hide full quote)

First, I don't know where you're from but I'll have to assume the USA because you say "whether he is extradited back here" (sp cor) as he is not being extradited to Sweden and is not charged for any crime in Sweden.

No, I think not. The USA is acting in a manner as they always do. This whole hate for Assange 'having spied' is a red herring for the Americans to absorb and to fill themselves full of hate for him and poor Bradley Manning. This continued media blitz absolutely covers up, in most American and many Canadian minds, the true stories here.

These are the stories of massive war crimes committed by the USA in its illegal wars round our globe. The media in the states, mostly especially the right wing media sensationalists of FOX News, USA Today and down the line, lessening to some degree CNN, ABC, NBC NY Times, Washington Post and onwards. The USA does not ever admit to its war crimes and other countries of the NATO pack are too gutless to even approach the issue knowing, full well, that the USA will do everything in its power to get them back in some way.

I haven't gone to WikiLeaks to see what they've published with regard to the war crimes on their site. There's enough out there to concern myself with for a long time. I'll get there.

However, I can speak of a few war crimes right off the top without need for looking.

The big one in Iraq today is the use and the total abuse of U-238 in weapons - this is usually referred to as Depleted Uranium and people get confused and are led to think it's relatively innocuous and it can be in solid form but we don't know for how long. In other words it's mildly radioactive,

The problems arise when U-238 is used in a weapon or in armour that is pieced with the violent force of a weapon. The USA has had evidence of its dangers when used as a weapon since navy tests in (I believe) 1982. However, they decided to ignore this data for years not even protecting their own military or contractors until very recently. An Australian scientist, some years back, published her findings about U-238 but was ignored. There have been others.

When a U-238 weapon is fired it incandesces and fluffy pieces of U-238 spray into the air to fall as a talcum-like powder. This light powder is easily puffed into the air by even small winds of footfalls. It is breathed into ones lungs and it deposits in various locations in ones body. It is not expelled and the radiation with a life of about 4.5 billion years infects the body and people die of various rare cancers which are directly related to radiation poisoning over a long period of time - a couple or few years rather than a month or so with heavier radiation doses.

In the Holy City of Fallujah in Iraq, which was inundated with U-238, (a whole wack of war crimes associated with this poor city)
in an eight day siege (embedded reporters send back to their hotel during the siege and every effort made to keep all other reporters out - one American report did get in.). Today, in Fallujah 80% of births have terrible defects associated with U-238. Women have been told to not have children. I'd suggest that this is genocide!

Iraq, on average, has a birth defect rate of 25%. The rare cancers in some areas are are 38% above the expected average judging by statistics before the war and from areas similar to Iraq before the wars there. Does genocide seem too harsh a term to you? I wonder how you might feel about that if you and your family were send to live in Fallujah for a time.

This is one massive war crime.

Others I can speak of off the top:

Desert Storm - two major ones not including the contrived war itself:
-"Highway of Death" Iraqi Army Armed Retreat from Kuwait 1991
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhmXleZXAr0
The Massacre of Withdrawing Soldiers on "The Highway of Death"
http://deoxy.org/wc/wc-death.htm
Highway of Death "Kuwait Basra" 26 February 1991
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10948116@N08/2194145023/
The Unseen War - by Peter Turnley
http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0212/pt04.html
- The live burial of soldiers by tanks converted into bulldozers

U.S. slaughter of Iraqi prisoners
Doctors and male nurses were among the approximately 380 prisoners.

[NebulaStardust]

Trowbridge,I don't actually have any tax problems--except on a theoretical level. On Assange, I have to say that Entry is most persuasive. But as you know, I normally disa ... (show full quote)

Trowbridge,
I don't actually have any tax problems--except on a theoretical level.

On Assange, I have to say that Entry is most persuasive. But as you know, I normally disagree with what you say, while admiring the way you say it.
But what do I know? I'm still back at the basics, wondering what's wrong with those two women who accuse J.A. of rape. I mean, what kind of woman takes a creep like Assange in her bed to begin with? ... (hide full quote)

Some do think that it would be easier for Assange to be extradited from the UK than Sweden and there is some cause for this belief as the UK has allowed some very easy extraditions that should not have been. One is that of a young man who put a link to Megauploads on his site contrary to American Law. This is totally bizarre - a country turning traitor on this young man. They ought only to have told him to take it down.

Another, is a 67 year old man who sold a few items to Iran that were on the US embargo list. Not a big deal and a minor error leading to no problems in our world at all! The UK caved in and another traitorous action against one of its own.

This then begs the question why the USA has not applied for extradition for Assange. The whole country with few exceptions consider Assange (wrongly) to be a criminal in this manner. According to the Guardian the USA has already set up a Grand Jury (very backward and primitive affair) to hear evidence to this case.

But, others do think that Sweden has proved more US friendly in cases such as Assange. It seems that the USA in similar cases has found Sweden to 'minimize' the interpretation of some laws in favour of US extradition in the past and some human rights organizations are very angry with the Swedish courts in these matters.

Britain, you will remember, in the case of Augusto Pinochet of Chile, the courts did not bend in favour of US challenges to protect this cruel ******* but was in favour of the Spanish extradition of Pinochet to face charges of murder of Spanish subjects by Pinochet's regime in Chile. You will remember that it was the CIA/USA that set up the coup of the democratic government in Chile in 1973 and that Washington (Nixon) was directly involved. Now this was criminal!!!!

[NebulaStardust]

Now that the problems of Julian Assange and Wilileaks are entering a new phase where there will be a final solution to whether he is extradicted back here - though this will t ... (show full quote)

Now that the problems of Julian Assange and Wilileaks are entering a new phase where there will be a final solution to whether he is extradicted back here - though this will take even more time if he appeals it to the European Court of Human Rights - shouldn't we have a general discussion about it all?

While most people think that it is a sinister plot, where the Swedish authorities are complict in wanting to really get him - ultimately sending him to the States to face trial for espionage, and possible execution, I suspect that it is really to get him off the hook for having outed the leakers of the Afghan File, the covert operations where the details were leaked by British GCHQ operators Gareth Williams and Gudrun Loftus who were killed for having done so when threatening to take their secret information further afield, especially to Putin's Moscow.

The failure to investigate their murders, and the dragging out of Assange's and Wikileaks' problems are too coincidental, and delayed resolving not to be connected. British authorities are still delaying the inquest over Williams clear murder while the press is rampant with stories about it trying to get Assange when there is no clear connection between him and Bradley Manning, no jurisdiction for the US to try Assange, an Australian, as an American spy, no serious basis for thinking that he will be convicted of rape here, resulting in no chance of his going to the States for face such a charge, etc.

For the other side of the story, see John Pilger's article in today's Guardian about Assange's apparent problems.

He, I think, has fallen for the wrong conspiracy.

What do you think? ... (hide full quote)

Sorry my reply was under the wrong article. My apologies!

Some do think that it would be easier for Assange to be extradited from the UK than Sweden and there is some cause for this belief as the UK has allowed some very easy extraditions that should not have been. One is that of a young man who put a link to Megauploads on his site contrary to American Law. This is totally bizarre - a country turning traitor on this young man. They ought only to have told him to take it down.

Another, is a 67 year old man who sold a few items to Iran that were on the US embargo list. Not a big deal and a minor error leading to no problems in our world at all! The UK caved in and another traitorous action against one of its own.

This then begs the question why the USA has not applied for extradition for Assange. The whole country with few exceptions consider Assange (wrongly) to be a criminal in this manner. According to the Guardian the USA has already set up a Grand Jury (very backward and primitive affair) to hear evidence to this case.

But, others do think that Sweden has proved more US friendly in cases such as Assange. It seems that the USA in similar cases has found Sweden to 'minimize' the interpretation of some laws in favour of US extradition in the past and some human rights organizations are very angry with the Swedish courts in these matters.

Britain, you will remember, in the case of Augusto Pinochet of Chile, the courts did not bend in favour of US challenges to protect this cruel ******* but was in favour of the Spanish extradition of Pinochet to face charges of murder of Spanish subjects by Pinochet's regime in Chile. You will remember that it was the CIA/USA that set up the coup of the democratic government in Chile in 1973 and that Washington (Nixon) was directly involved. Now this was criminal!!!!

[NebulaStardust]

Your response leaves me perplexed.I fail to see what other crimes Julian Assange may or may not have committed as perceived by other countries(i.e. the USA) has any bearing on ... (show full quote)

Your response leaves me perplexed.

I fail to see what other crimes Julian Assange may or may not have committed as perceived by other countries(i.e. the USA) has any bearing on the criminal charges that Sweden is bringing against him.

Bender do you believe that Julian Assange is not subject to the same rule of law that you and I must follow? ... (hide full quote)

First, Sweden wants Assange for re-questioning as the women's stories continue to be enlarged. If you will remember the case, these two women, at separate times, made advances upon Assange as they were quite taken by his 'notoriety' with his WikiLeaks. The present story, we have yet to be introduced to has changed from the original stories with each new story exaggerating upon the claims made in the past stories. Have you followed this at all?

Assange has stated that, with the appropriate protection against US extradition from Sweden to the USA, he would willingly accept going to Sweden for questioning. Sweden refused to extend this small formality.

Now, Assange's lawyers are talking about Assange being incarcerated in Sweden on suspicion. So, that means something again has changed with regard to what Sweden wants of Assange. If I were innocent of such accusations I would have nothing to do with Sweden. What Sweden is concocting here would be called double-jeopardy here. It would, by law, not be allowed.

So, again, unless things have changed in the past few hours, Assange is/was facing no charges in Sweden.

Also, you seem to be of the right-wing ilk that make judgements of guilt before such charges, even, have been brought forward. In acting in such a manner you are showing no concept of law and justice nor any concept of fairness as there is no evidence to suggest that Assange is lying or, in fact, that the women are being truthful. I make no such judgements here but I do set up other possibilities and other pieces of evidence leading one way or the other.

[Yorkshireman]

Assange has stated that, with the appropriate protection against US extradition from Sweden to the USA, he would willingly accept going to Sweden for questioning. Sweden refus ... (show full quote)

Assange has stated that, with the appropriate protection against US extradition from Sweden to the USA, he would willingly accept going to Sweden for questioning. Sweden refused to extend this small formality. ... (hide full quote)

Sweden cannot extend this formality, so to speak. There are international agreements in place between Sweden and US, just as there is between Sweden and many countries. Since no request for extradition to the US has been received, how can they protect him from it? Sweden is not refusing anything, it is following the rules and law.

What if the US requested extradition for crimes not related to WikiLeaks? Maybe they had proof of other severe wrong doings? There is absolutly no way any country, without granting asylum, could pre-emp an extradition request and give a guarrantee of not extraditing!

Assange's team know this, which is why they play that card all the time in the media as the main reason for Him not returning to Sweden for questioning in relation to sex offenses.