There may be a ruling today on Julian Assange’s proposed extradition to Sweden to face some ridiculously flimsy accusations of “minor rape”. The threat to Assange, that the Swedish authorities will simply hand him over to the United States on espionage charges, is very real. Sweden was one of the tiny minority of 14 – the US and US vassal states – who on Monday voted against Palestinian membership of UNESCO.
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Twimc:
I wrote a few months back “An USan Dr. of Philosophy Dr. Samuel Embo who I’ve had the pleasure of chatting with a couple of times did a study of anti-Islamic sentiment amongst Sweeds” Dr Embo presented his findings in a lecture. Dr Sam left no room for thinking anything anything other than many native Sweeds were very unhappy with Muslim immigrants (possibly also via refuges). This was a few years back. Of course that will feed through the political system.
Vassal state? Hard to say. UNESCO vote is does give off that smell however.
(sorry, posted on wrong thread ‘n window)
To those who smeared Assange: Downed your first glass of champers yet?
Well the deed has been done. Assange is off to Sweden at some point, barring appeal. Beware-Massive International Stitch-Up gets under way.
Further to Mary’s ever-potent links/posts, it seems that a number of people who make no secret of their work for the MI complex in the USA – ex-forces-now-private-security-firms – are posting like crazy on social media networks (eg. Facebook) wrt (to paraphrase the Moody Blues in a terrible way) ‘pictures from the sky’. A welter of Good Morning Vietnam-style propaganda from military press offices and so on. Brings back sour memories of Colin Powell’s mendacious performance at the UN Security Council in 2003. Now the refrain is the same, except substitute words, ‘Syria’ and ‘Iran’ for that of ‘Iraq’:
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“Oh! It’s Syria! Oh, there’s a hut! Oh, it’s glowing! Oh, it must be Jabba the Hut! Let’s bomb it!”
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A swarm of drones and other flying monstrosities prepares to leave the hive…
http://internationalextraditionblog.com/2011/11/02/why-julian-assange-might-be-better-off-in-sweden/
• It’s only the Swedish Supreme Court who can decide to extradite someone (if the accused doesn’t agree what the district court decides, of course), not any politician. BUT, if the Supreme court decides that Assange CAN be extradited, then the Swedish gouvernment can change that, for humanitarian reasons, for example. The other way around is not possible.
• If the Swedish Supreme Court decides that Assange can be extradited to a third country, like USA, the UK authorities has to aprove.
• The Swedish law recently changed to ensure people like Assange even better legal security in these cases than before.
• Because of what I’m mentioned above and earlier posts, I’m sure of this: US authorities DOES NOT want Assange to be extradited to Sweden.
Evidence against Assange is weak to say the least but the UK, which is not his native country, would extradite him to Sweden, disown him, as they did the Malyshevs, and his fate would be in the hands of God knows who. Australia, like Sweden, voted against Palestine’s membership of UNESCO, showing support for the US flagship, so he is unlikely to get help from his homeland. This is a blatant attempt to stop the leaks. It stinks.
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If my memory serves correctly neither of these two women wanted to press charges. I’ve located this in which charge 3 accuses Assange of “pressing his erect penis into the complainant’s back” and wonder what under Swedish law prohibits such an act between consenting adults.
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http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/12/09/rundle-r-pe-case-complainant-has-left-sweden-may-have-ceased-co-operating/
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On the one hand one young woman, Ardin, seems plausible, for example, helping build better relations between Israel and Palestine, but on the other much could be read into the fact that she started her thesis in Havana about Cuban opposition groups and was removed to Miami for her own safety. If someone is working for US intelligence neither he/she nor US intelligence are likely to shout about that fact through a megaphone. There is something sinister in this which has nothing to do with the truth. Laundered money could well be the incentive again.
Why is it that whistle-blowers like Assange can be extradited while proper criminals like Berezovsky and Chalibi are free to spend their ill-gotten gains in this country?
From Assange’s perspective, if it comes to it, would he be better banged up in a Swedish jail on made-up rape charges than being fed to the lions in some evil US torture center after a show trial on the run-up to a US election? I think I know which I would prefer and it’s where they have much better coffee. I heard that Assange is not finished yet and will take it to the Supreme Court in the UK. At least he is playing the system to buy time which is the best option just now.
Wikileaks – whatever position we take on it individually – at least fulfils one important function. It’s a release valve – the WatchDog Syndrome if you like (i.e. if we tut-tut about things often enough on TV, people may not notice little is ever done.) We all know what happens if you block a release valve on any machinery that involves pressure – and social and political pressures on this planet are now mounting exponentially.
John Kennedy said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” I don’t think he reckoned on those whose world agendas both provoke and depend on exactly that end.
Mods, I have two comments the same virtually. Please only allow one.
@John, done 🙂
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@all – I’ve release a number of pending comments, the spam filter is getting fussier these days. (It’s meant to be a self-learning thing, but I think it is unlearning!). I’d like a better anti-spam system, but they unfortunately cost money!
Canspeccy – Why so hard on Mr. Assange. Whether his motive is narcissism as you maintain, or public service as I believe, he has benefited us all by leaking important information that should never have been a secret in the first place. I myself have benefited from knowing some of the leaks. For example, the leaked American cable that describes the former head of CSIS, Canada’s Secret Police, boasting to an American Diplomat about how CSIS “vigorously harasses” people in Canada. If one believes in democracy it’s important that such stories get out, and some have thanks to Mr. Assange.
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If one wishes to view any other cases of abuse by CSIS, just click on my signature to see my own, or look at the story in Lobster Magazine, headlined “CSIS and the Canadian Stasi” that describes how a former Canadian Intelligence Agent was intimidated, threatened and harassed by his former colleagues. Paste in this URL to view it.
http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/free/lobster61/lobster61.pdf
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The intelligence agencies in both the UK and Canada are out of control, putting toadying to elites ahead of the national interest, and, if we want our next generation to live in a democracy, we need people like Mr. Assange who have the courage to speak out.
Yes, thanks, Roderick Russell. May I say too that the techniques about which you and Gareth Llewellyn have revealed in the public space seem very similar to those meted out to Irish journalist, Denis Lehane and a number of others whose work I have come across and who, for one reason or another, have fallen foul of MI5/MI6 and similar gangs. These people come from a broad array of backgrounds and time-periods. The techniques of harassment seem fairly similar in all of these cases. The fascinating thing is that while eveveryon was/ is willing to accept that such techniques were/are used in places like the USSR/Russia, etc., when it comes to Western capitalist democracies, there seems a strange tendency automatically to disbelieve the accounts and constantly to demand ‘evidence’ – as though such harassment left bloodstains, balaklavas or DNA traces! The whole point resides in the lack of physical evidence.
I don’t care whether Assange is a Don Juan character. That doesn’t mean he is a rapist and it doesn’t alter the service he has done, whatever his motives, in exposing appalling acts by governments which would still be secret otherwise. These are clearly trumped up charges as an excuse to divert attention from salient information which no newspaper or broadaster would ever have exposed.
I find it extraordinary that anyone could fail to see the transparent motives behind attempts to extradite him. He is clearly not a rich person despite the hints that he is after fame and perhaps fortune. No-one opens themselves up to extradition in order to get 15 minutes/hours/months of fame and a few serial girlfriends. The hypocracy surrounding his vilification by the media is palpable.
Focus on the wealth of information (which should have been public in the first place) that no-one would be otherwise aware of had he not existed.
What some of us seem to be saying is that the activities of embassies, and their communications with the home government, ought to be open to scrutiny by the public worldwide. And that Assange’s merit consists of facilitating this. Sadly, I don’t think diplomacy works – or can work – that way at all, but no doubt you will correct me…
I still have an open mind on Julian Assange. I initially dismissed all the “he’s a CIA/Mossad asset”..but read the following a couple of weeks ago. He was also treated VERY Differently to John Anthony Hill who was in Wandsworth Prison at the same time and stayed there for another 6 months or so with zero media coverage.
John Anthony Hill did The Ripple Effect video about The London Bombings, and was arrested for sending copies of his videos to The Clerk Of The Court for the attention of the Judge with regards to a different but related court case. After spending nearly a year in jail, a jury found him innocent of all charges.
Tony
http://blogs.alternet.org/penucquem/2010/10/11/julian-assange-cia-agent-provocateur/
Extract
““The U.S. has wanted him for questioning since March” so what on earth is he doing in Britain whose intelligence agencies are so in bed with USA intelligence, the two countries should be treated for sex addiction? British intelligence has repeatedly fought British courts and judges over state secrets revealing British involvement in USA kidnapping and torture on the pretext it would jepoardize “intelligence sharing with the CIA” on top of have a “no proof needed” extradition treaty- if the CIA actually wanted Assange, they had him, right there. Assange was in England (unmolested) to lecture at an investigative journalists forum.
Assange: “I’m constantly annoyed people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11
Lets have a former United States Army General of “Intelligence” speak to that:
Major General Albert Stubblebine [watch video]
Assange’s “I’m constantly annoyed people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11” sounds like exactly the message a CIA seeking “FAMILY” military/industrial corporate control through staged disaster would run: in a counter-intelligence psy-ops operation promoting disinformation at an investigative journalists forum: ‘Don’t look any closer at 9/11’
Do I think the CIA was behind 9/11? I don’t know. But when we are told by the presently famous ‘web journalist’ and founder of wikileaks to ignore the obvious (taking an even more conservative approach than General Stubblebein in the video) such as building #7 (nothing hit building 7) having been brought down by classic and highly professional implosion or demolition technique, I think we need to look more closely at BOTH: 9/11 and the famous guy telling the world’s investigative journalists ‘don’t look any closer at 9/11’
Assange states “everyone’s email is being read” and accordingly advises ‘leaking the old fashioned way’ with a “drop to the post office box”
NO-no-no Julian Assange, it does not work like that unless you wish to do intelligence agencies like the CIA a big favor- the daily 1.6 billion “everyones” email collected by American intelligence cannot be read, it is a logistical impossibility. Text extraction computing software is imperfect and pick ups by far more false leads than real leads and ‘read mails’ of those people singled out for surveilliance [like myself] can read by more than one country’s agencies, including law enforcement [a fact for which I am personally pleased] and that is how, among other things, Italian law enforcement can bring down a criminal CIA rendition”
Komodo
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Diplomacy requires confidentiality. So, for that matter, does (conventional) crime. It’s not that Assange helped the poor Yanks with the publishing arm of the State Department. However, the responsibility to maintain confidentiality lies, in this case, with the US authorities. Their incompetence lies in their information security systems, not in their publicity department.
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Their principle incompetence, of course, is their moral incompetence to control more military power than is necessary to secure their own borders.
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The Americans are happy that Mr Bout’s former colleague Mr Smulian breached confidentiality and told them private information (its reliability is another matter). Mr Bout is unhappy.
I was thinking about the powerful word ‘Genesis’ and the beginning of the universe Tony_opmoc and you came to mind. When I scrolled down you had written a comment (obviously in 7/7/9/11 mode). It made me think that coincidences are an important part of the power of intention.
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Maybe Julian was talking about the ‘official conspiracy’ – worth a thought.
The Swedish sex charges were obviously complete nonsense right from the start, but generated enormous worldwide sympathy and awareness of Julian Assange.
Did I learn anything much from wikileaks that I didn’t already know and had read elsewhere – well who exactly could be bothered to read them – all the detail?
Sure Hillary looked really angry, but Hillary can look any way she wants to.
So now, eventually maybe, at some point in the future, he will follow possibly, maybe, the kid with Aspergers syndrome – who walked straight in cos the US Military hadn’t been on the same Internet Security Course as me. I don’t use any passwords either, but I am not in control of the largest military force ever assembled…To The Torture Chambers.
Am I supposed to believe all this shit?
Who’s First Gary MacKinnon or Julian Assange to be strung upside down and given the Business?????
Just more Shite to be lapped up by the Sheep as They Crucify The Lot of Us.
I Really Like Daniel Hannan and Nigel Farage
I haven’t much of a clue about their political views, but they wipe the Floor With The Dictators.
They actually seem to be fighting for at least some form of Democracy and Make me Laugh in The Process.
So who’s first to start the Free Julian Assange Petition.
This all seriously pisses me off, because it makes Gordon Duff look good – and I don’t trust him either.
Veterans Today is one of the most Bizarre Websites in The World.
Truth and Fiction
But Can YOU Tell The Difference?
Its a Learning Process.
Tony
Yes, this ‘narcissistic sociopath’ stuff seems to just be taken on face value by too many people. Clearly I don’t know Assange, but I’ve not once got that impression. Perhaps Assange might be slightly on the Aspergers scale, common amongst very smart people. Perhaps his treatment of women is a little arrogant (I exclude the accusations from this comment, I mean just in general). I’ve no doubt that were he my boss I’d want to thump him. I also think he’s made mistakes. Perhaps he isn’t a very nice man. I don’t know, but I can accept all this. A sociopath? I haven’t seen one piece of evidence to suggest this at all.
On the day when the lies have started again, and where we now face the grim prospect – and I think it’s serious this time – of an invasion of Iran, I think I know where the true sociopaths lie. And when Tony Bliar pops up on television soon, as he will, denouncing the theocracy, and telling us how Libya proves you can bring democracy to the savages, then we can see what a true sociopath looks like. Assange is a mere boy scout in comparison.
Mark,
Don’t start me off on co-incidences. I can also do this most weird thing when in Business Mode at 9 Oclock in The Morning…
And I say to the bloke (who had been doing exactly the same job as me) who also got fired 3 months earlier and went a completely different way to me.
WTF are you doing here at this Almost Unheard of Airport Now?
Neither of us had been there before and we were going to completely different unconnected meetings with totally different companies.
In fact Neither of Us had Flown on Business Before
Tony
Fleet Street Fox (And Yes I Do Know Who She Really Is, But I do not Reveal Such Confidences) Has Just Made Me Burst Out Loud Laughing. And I didn’t think She was that kind of Girl.
“Poor foolish humans”
http://www.fleetstreetfox.com/
Tony
I probably shouldn’t give this the click-business, but for those who haven’t read:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/02/assange-hero-zero-swedes-pitiable
Wonder if blog-owner has thoughts on this hatchet-job?
Personally, I hope Assange wins in the end, just so he can sue everyone at The Guardian. They deserve it.
Whether or not Assange is a nice person is really quite irrelevant to the worth or otherwise of his work. Beethoven wasn’t a nice person to be with, but that doesn’t say anything about the quality of the music. On the other hand, Assange’s comment on 9/11 (as mentioned by tony-opmoc above) was distinctly fishy.
”I probably shouldn’t give this the click-business, but for those who haven’t read:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/02/assange-hero-zero-swedes-pitiable
Wonder if blog-owner has thoughts on this hatchet-job?
Personally, I hope Assange wins in the end, just so he can sue everyone at The Guardian. They deserve it.”
I’ve read it. It’s terrible.
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I think the guardian editors are worried about getting arrested when they visit the US for collaborating with a ‘terrorist’ organisation.
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That’s why they have been running this smear campaign against Assagne.
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They could have ignored Assagne and wikileaks after the fall out but instead they decided to put the boot in.
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Noam Chomsky on Assange
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http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/anarchy-rules-ok-chomsky-tells-australia/story-e6frfku0-1226184908524#ixzz1cctCDvMS
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Anarchy rules OK Chomsky tells Australia
November 03, 2011
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PEOPLE should embrace the sort of anarchism typified by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Noam Chomsky says.
The American commentator, philosopher and activist was being interviewed in front of a packed theatre at the Sydney Opera House today when he was asked his thoughts on Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s comments that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s motivations were “sort of anarchic”.
Professor Chomsky said if anarchy meant questioning authority and demanding the truth, then everyone should be anarchic.
“In that sense I think everyone should be an anarchist,” he said, in response to heavy applause from the audience.
Anarchism should not be viewed in a negative light, Prof Chomsky said.
“It’s not the conception of anarchism as people running wild and breaking windows.
“In our age we have to overcome the barriers introduced by the ranks of capitalism and corporate capitalism and I think there is some sense in that, at the core of the anarchist tradition … is to ask and raise questions about authority, hierarchy and domination.
“And if it cannot justify itself, then it should be dismantled. That’s the core principle of anarchism.”
His comments came after Britain’s High Court in London upheld a ruling that Assange should be sent to face questioning by Swedish authorities over claims of sexual assault against two women.
Prof Chomsky is to receive the 2012 Sydney Peace Prize at a ceremony later this evening.
Quelcrime:
Komodo
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“Diplomacy requires confidentiality. So, for that matter, does (conventional) crime. It’s not that Assange helped the poor Yanks with the publishing arm of the State Department. However, the responsibility to maintain confidentiality lies, in this case, with the US authorities. Their incompetence lies in their information security systems, not in their publicity department.”
Not at all sure where that gets us. The alternative to diplomacy is bullets. So on the whole I think diplomacy is a good idea. No-one can dispute (a) that the US has been extremely careless about securing its diplomatic channels and (b)simultaneously, ridiculously paranoid when classifying routine traffic as Secret. Together these constitute a classic f*ckup in the finest traditions of the nation. I said nothing about anyone’s publicity department.
My point, that diplomacy requires a measure of secrecy, and that it cannot operate in the public domain, remains unchanged. Imagine, for a moment, that we had a good government, and that it was negotiating some profitable but truly ethical business with a state whose adherence to human rights, and general right-on-ness, were guaranteed. Would we want the Heritage Foundation to read our diplomatic cables? I think not. I think we would be extremely annoyed with the leaker, and incarcerate him indefinitely on a diet of wholewheat bread and tofu .
The hatchet job was done by some young swedish feminist writing for the guardian, was of a poor standard even for that floppy and diseased organ and was reflected by the commentators below. What has become of that once credible news source, the rot set in after it moved to london ?
You should have heard the character assassination of him by Zoe Williams of the Guardian and Ian Dale the Con blogger last night on Sky News’ review of today’s.
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Earlier they were discussing the call to war that is referred to below. We even heard of Iran’s nuclear capavilities, their lawlessness and even that old chestnut about Admadinejad wiping Israel off the face of the earth. Just casual chat and laughter as if they were at a dinner table but vicious and misleading.
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In Israel the war has already begun (and here too, just read the Guardian)
Posted by gabriele on November 3, 2011, 8:55 am
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an Haaretz poll says Israelis evenly split over attacking Iran (1)
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No bad, but not enough. You must bring more people on board of this madness. Here you go:
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IDF holds drill simulating rocket attack on central Israel
Sirens sound throughout central Israel for 90 seconds; drill comes amid mounting speculation that Israeli leaders could be preparing attack on Iran. (2)
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People’s minds must be softened and prepared. The most effective sirens however are the state-corporate media. We had an example yesterday, here in the UK, where the Guardian online published an article full of anonymous sources:
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“The Guardian has spoken to a number of Whitehall and defence officials” (3)
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Is not this one of the ways propaganda is sold as information? Is the role of a free press to pass Government’s propaganda to its readership?
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Reading that Guardian article, one has to reply, yes, that’s the role of our “free” press.
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(1) haaretz.com/print-edition/news/haaretz-poll-israelis-evenly-split-over-attacking-iran-1.393378
(2) haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/idf-holds-drill-simulating-rocket-attack-on-central-israel-1.393454
(3) guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/02/uk-military-iran-attack-nuclear
….review of today’s papers.
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The comment of Gabriele Zamparini’s was from
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1320310554.html