Assange Back In Court For Sex Crimes Appeal 197
kaptink writes "Julian Assange is back in court today to appeal his extradition to Sweden. So far the court has heard more on the incompatibility between UK and Sweden sex crime laws and that the arrest warrant used was essentially flawed. — 'Ben Emmerson QC told Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Ousely that the European arrest warrant under which Assange is being held was flawed because it failed to provide a "fair, accurate and proper" description of the alleged sexual misconduct.'"
So it goes like this (Score:5, Insightful)
a conservative (swedish) politician (with ties to u.s. backed companies) intervenes, and a prosecutor in a DIFFERENT area takes up the case that the other prosecutor has DROPPED, and conjures up a new sex crime by stating 'continuing after a condom broke constitutes rape'.
with that fantastic, politically-driven propped-up legal interpretation, probably 30% or more of the world's male population are now classified as rapists. yes. if your condom popped out in the last moments before your ejaculation, you are a rapist.
how could you stop, you ask ? well, thats not the prosecutor's problem apparently. you may need to go to tibet and train 10 years in a mountain temple to be able to control your dick, in last stages of pre-ejaculation maybe. prosecutor doesnt care. he had to invent a sex crime, and he did.
well done sweden. good for you. you were one of the few countries in which corporate backed conservative politicians didnt start to screw the basic human rights over. now, you are one.
Re:So it goes like this (Score:4, Informative)
Re:So it goes like this (Score:5, Informative)
Re:So it goes like this (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So it goes like this (Score:5, Informative)
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How is this flamebait? Responding in thread as I haven't had any mod points for months.
the moron who modded the above down (Score:3, Insightful)
is there someone in their right mind justifying people complaining about sex, DAYS later it happened in a consentual fashion ? have sex today willingly, decide its rape tomorrow.
im anxiously awaiting justification of the moron who downmodded the parent as flamebait. not that it is possible to RATIONALLY justify what i have posed though.
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is there someone in their right mind justifying people complaining about sex, DAYS later it happened in a consentual fashion ? have sex today willingly, decide its rape tomorrow.
Yes, this is the politically correct stance in Sweden today. ALL High-ranking politicians call them selves feminist and will -at least in public - subscribe to the view that a woman never lies about being raped, and that the woman was raped if she at any point in time decides that she was raped.
I am posting anonymous because I was
WATCH OUT! (Score:2)
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When in Sweden he should ask the police for advice himself. Tell them he was asked to provide sexual services in return for lodging, that this wasn't discussed in advance, and at 3am he didn't feel he had too many options other than put up with it. He was tired and not familiar with the area or country even. He should ask the police if he was sexually exploited or the victim of any other crime.
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Odd behaviour for a rape victim.
Possibly a different definition of one as well. This isnt "gun to the head violent rape", this is "Swedish-law-consent-was-withdrawn" rape, if the accusations are correct.
Undisputed....Assange had consensual sex with the first woman.....when the first woman became aware of this she approached the police.
Its not undisputed, it is in fact the primary dispute of the case-- whether the sex was consensual, or simply started that way and consent was withdrawn during the act.
Re:So it goes like this (Score:4, Insightful)
You can withdraw consent at any point during sex, but you can't withdraw consent afterwards. Which is really the crux of the matter, the women didn't consider it to be rape until after consulting with police, which makes it really fishy that there was anything that Assange did that was criminal. Sure it was stupid to sleep with a radical feminist, but nothing that could reasonably be foreseen as criminal.
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Which can be easily explained to police. Unless the accused tries to turn it into a media event by claiming it's a US based conspiracy.
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You might want to re-read my post. She consented at the time, and changed her mind after the fact. This new story about her withdrawing consent mid coitus is a new story, and it really begs the question as to why the story has now changed to that degree. I don't know which version is correct.
At this point, I doubt either woman has sufficient credibility to be a witness without some substantiating evidence that anything illegal happened. And them hanging out afterwards is not likely to lend credibility to an
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She consented at the time, and changed her mind after the fact.
You might want to reread your sources. If everyone was in agreement over that, there WOULD be no case.
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I'm not using that argument, but I think it requires a good faith effort to stop as soon as possible. Which usually will be pretty immediate. Not several minutes later. But, you do have a point, in that absolutely immediately isn't necessarily realistic in all cases.
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Im willing to state that your opinions on the matter has about as much influence on the actual facts of the case as does mine; that is, none whatsoever.
The fact is that he is being tried for involuntary intercourse, which is being termed rape. Whether or not you think the law is reasonable is irrelevant, especially when it comes to his extradition. If Assange can show that he attempted to comply with the woman's wishes, that would be a matter for the actual trial; at the moment the fight is over whether h
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Source would be nice, I linked my source at the start which says that she DID withdraw consent during the act.
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In real life, there are two kinds of men: those who stop promptly when their partner tells them to, and those who very obviously don't. The latter are the ones who find themselves accused of rape (though not nearly often enough).
In real life, there are two kinds of women: those who asked their partner to stop promptly during sex, and those who very obviously haven't. The latter are the ones that find themselves falsely accusing men of rape (far too often).
Indeed, unless you were in that bedroom, you really can't say what happened. We can look at the surrounding evidence and determine that the "rape victim" had premeditated this false rape scheme by posting it online. We can also see that she did not immediately claim she had b
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Probably because, even if your scenario were factual, that has nothing whatsoever to do with entrapment.
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Odd behaviour for a rape victim.
Possibly a different definition of one as well. This isnt "gun to the head violent rape", this is "Swedish-law-consent-was-withdrawn" rape, if the accusations are correct.
You know, basically all industrialized Western nations consider it rape when somebody continues having sex with a partner who's withdrawn consent. This isn't some Sweden-only thing.
And "gun to the head" is a very rare rape scenario. Stuff like The Implication [youtube.com] is a lot more common than that.
Undisputed....Assange had consensual sex with the first woman.....when the first woman became aware of this she approached the police.
Its not undisputed, it is in fact the primary dispute of the case-- whether the sex was consensual, or simply started that way and consent was withdrawn during the act.
Yup. There's a large number of morons who will tell you the "facts" of this case—which upon examination, turn out to be the defense lawyers' version! And then there was the time back in November or so when some
Re:So it goes like this (Score:5, Informative)
No, it wouldn't count as rape then. Rape is purely about consent. Consent was given and provided that he wasn't knowingly spreading the disease there's nothing that can or should be done about it.
While we're at it, what about all the women that trick men into getting them pregnant by claiming to be on the pill? Following your logic that's rape as well, which is just absurd. If you have sex without a condom, STIs and pregnancy are real risks. Claiming that it's different if the risk turns out to be high isn't really legitimate.
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If you have sex, STIs and pregnancy are real risks. Claiming that it's different if the risk turns out to be high isn't really legitimate.
There, fixed that for you.
Anyone engaging in sexual activity should know and understand that the activity's primary purpose is to make more humans, and that everything we've ever done to avoid making babies while having
Re:So it goes like this (Score:5, Informative)
No, having sex with a person and deliberately giving them HIV is assault (Just like deliberately giving any other infection), not 'rape'.
Rape is a specific crime. Failure to get tested for STD might be illegal, but is not rape. Failure to inform someone of STD status might be illegal, but is again not rape.
Rape is the specific crime of having sex without consent.
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One of them publish how to hurt men against their will using sex. Clearly she knew what she was doing,
Gosh, did the CIA just Google for an agent when it knew Assange was in Sweden? Is this the one who was doing the anti-regime intelligence work in Cuba, or the other one?
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Swedish law review (Score:2)
Obama loves you.....and Goldman Sachs!
Re:So it goes like this (Score:5, Informative)
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My bad. In retrospect I probably didnt do him any favours wording it like that cause your right, three of the four 'possible' charges arent really sex crimes in any rational society. And the forth is dubious at best. Better than 'Rape Appeal' though.
First, study ALL Swedish law, (Score:2)
Your comments are excellent, LizardKing, but that must be added. More importantly, they Brits should be far more concerned with the total compromising of their government and police forces by the Rupert Murdoch crime machine, and begin using all their resources to extradite Murdoch and his co-conspirators.
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Don't be silly. He is every bit as guilty as Dominique Strauss Kahn. Just because Julian Assange, Dominique Strauss Kahn, Mahmoud Abdel Salam Omar, Moamarr Quadaffi, and many other enemies of the U.S. became accused rapists shortly after crossing the U.S. government doesn't mean these are obvious CIA setups to publicly discredit them in the interests of the U.S. That's just a coincidence.
The CIA doesn't do bad stuff like that. And if you say otherwise, you're obviously nuts. So stop talking crazy and just a
Re:So it goes like this (Score:4, Insightful)
You're saying the US falsely accused him of rape? I guess he's not such a bad guy after all then.
You know, apart from the whole assassinating-dissidents and murdering-millions-of-people thing.
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Don't be silly. It's just a coincidence. Accusing someone of rape isn't one of the fastest and easiest ways to publicly discredit them and destroy their reputation in the press and among their supporters. No one would ever think of using that to their own political ends. Stop all this crazy talk.
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Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me in four similar cases, all taking place within weeks or months after the accused crossed the U.S. government, one of which has already been shown to be a set-up--well, shame on the the sucker who thinks that's all just an incredible coincidence.
Everyone who crosses the U.S. is suddenly a rapist. And an army of suckers like you will swallow that fiction no matter how many times they use it. They've gotten so brazen now that they're staging their arrests within DAYS of the
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Yes, and the CIA is doing a bang-up job with Strauss Kahn. Whats that? Their defense and primary witness' credibility is heavily in question? Wow, wonder how the CIA screwed that up.
All the information is pointing to a maid who was trying to extort a ton of money out of Strauss Kahn, and he has already been released from house arrest. Theyre currently trying to figure out whether they even have a case left. CIA secret op, indeed.
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The CIA didn't screw up Strauss Kahn. It was actually a rather masterful piece of work. The accomplished both their goals with flying colors. Today a pro-American puppet is in charge of the IMF and Sarkozy is likely to win the presidency. The CIA has screwed up plenty of operations in the past, but this most certainly wasn't one of them.
It was never about convicting Strauss Kahn. It was about discrediting him.
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So, if Strauss Kahn wins the presidency, and this discussion resurfaces, will you then claim that its even more brilliant, because he will be an ineffective president?
The way you are arguing, no matter what reality and all evidence shows, you can continue to claim that its a conspiracy.
And Im not trying to claim the CIA couldnt do something like that (despite it being incredibly illegal, and not something the CIA would do inside of our country); but when you have no evidence whatsoever, and reality in fact
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He won't even get nominated to run. He's finished. That was one of the two goals.
As for evidence, as I told another poster, I'll try to get the CIA to send you a signed confession. Because barring that, you're either going to have to wait 60 years for them to declassify the details, or accept that there are just too many coincidences here to dismiss it all as pure chance.
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Strauss Kahn had been openly criticizing the value of the U.S. dollar in the weeks leading up to his arrest and had just pulled ahead of the pro-U.S. Sarkozy in the French presidential race. Omar was raising funds for the Muslim Brotherhood, in their effort to secure a place in the new Egyptian government.
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Another angle on the Dominique Strauss Kahn case: They may also have been targeting New York AG Eric Schneiderman, who just happened to be making moves to prosecute the banking giants under New York law. By having the case blow up in his face, they probably succeeded at discrediting Schneiderman as well.
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Depends on how deep you go down the conspiracy path.
At the extreme end, when they got involved in exposing that the US has no gold - http://www.eutimes.net/2011/05/russia-says-imf-chief-jailed-for-discovering-all-us-gold-is-gone/ [eutimes.net]
More reasonable (but still off in conspiracy land) when Strauss Kahn talked up Special Drawing Rights to replace US dollars for reserves and for oil trading - http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/10/markets/dollar/index.htm [cnn.com]. Such a move would crater the US economy (yes even further). Saddam
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The point is that this is what Strauss Kahn was calling for [guardian.co.uk] right before his arrest on trumped-up charges. And literally within days of a new IMF chief being elected, the prosecutor in the case (who had previously made a public arrest and called the case rock solid) suddenly drops the case and admits that the only witness is a joke. If you think that's all just a coincidence, well then, what can I say?
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Which is completely irrelevant to the US not liking the idea of a transition away from trading oil in US dollars and from using US dollars as reserves.
And also completely unrelated to what I claimed which had nothing to do with manufacturing or debt to GDP ratios and so on.
There's certainly no blaming of the US - it's the only place that doesn't get any of the blame since they aren't the ones choosing to use another country's currency for world trade. Your the only one who mentioned the US being a cause or
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Do you not have an enter key?
For the first line, yes the US dollar has provided stability, the problem is it is now not doing so. The dollar's devaluing is pushing prices higher and pumping inflation everywhere else (there should be inflation in the US - that's what happens when you borrow lots, but it is being seen elsewhere instead). The rest of world isn't going to put up with that forever, hence the moves at moving to "currency baskets" and so on.
For the last line, I stated what the guy was for using in
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Here is another excellent article [guardian.co.uk] on exactly what Strauss Kahn was calling for (and why it scared the U.S. government so much). Of course, with their puppet in place as IMF head now, this plan has been quickly dropped.
Re:So it goes like this (Score:5, Informative)
OK, fanboy: excuse this one. This is the description of what happened *according to Assange's own lawyer*:
The appellant [Assange]'s physical advances were initially welcomed but then it felt awkward since he was "rough and impatient" They lay down in bed. AA was lying on her back and Assange was on top of her AA felt that Assange wanted to insert his penis into her vagina directly, which she did not want since he was not wearing a condom She did not articulate this. Instead she therefore tried to turn her hips and squeeze her legs together in order to avoid a penetration AA tried several times to reach for a condom, which Assange had stopped her from doing by holding her arms and bending her legs open and trying to penetrate her with his penis without using a condom. AA says that she felt about to cry since she was held down and could not reach a condom and felt this could end badly.
Source [guardian.co.uk]
Re:So it goes like this (Score:5, Informative)
Continuing with the next paragraph from that same source:
But crucially, Emmerson said, there was no lack of consent sufficient for the unlawful coercion allegation, because "after a while Assange asked what AA was doing and why she was squeezing her legs together. AA told him that she wanted him to put a condom on before he entered her. Assange let go of AA's arms and put on a condom which AA found her."
Women have always expected men to be mind-readers, but that doesn't constitute rape.
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It's a verbatim quote from the court. Go find another to contradict it if you want.
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Also, if you think the Guardian is a tabloid you need your head examining.
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It's very sad that bullshit like this gets voted up on slashdot. I suppose in this boys club wimmin are not someone you bother to empathize with.
This story is not about women who willingly sleep with a man, and afterwards claim he made them. It's a about a man who gets women into his bed, willingly, and then does things to them they don't consent to.
In one case, a condom broke, she tried to grab a new condom but couldn't because he held her down. For this, he may be charged with some sort of sexual assault.
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wimmin
Way to go.
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I suppose in this boys club wimmin are not someone you bother to empathize with.
What's a "wimmin" and why would I empathize it?
Unless its a cool new lingo for swimmin', in that case I take offense to your remarks. I am in a boys club _dedicated_ to swimming. I still don't understand how to empathize with it though.
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She never said "Stop" or "Don't", and had previously said "Yeah, let's do it." That is consent. You can withdraw consent during sex, but only if you SAY YOU DON'T WANT TO CONTINUE - which she never did.
It's malicious prosecution, and the fact that it came to light about a day after the WikiLeaks fiasco should be all you need to know in order to figure out it was staged and coerced prosecution of a man who has committed no crime.
Re:So it goes like this (Score:4, Insightful)
What kind of nonsense is this? People don't endure rapes and sexual assualts; they suffer them. Enduring someone who is poor in bed, and not articulating what you do/do not want them to do, does not constitute a sexual assault.
This case is groundless unless the alleged victim had a serious reason for "not articulating" herself properly, that is, fear for her safety if she did so. That would make the case a sexual assault, and that is a common feature of assaults. Being "badgered" into sex is not grounds enough.
Rape laws are for victims who did not consent to sex with another individual before or during the act. They are not for people who afterwards decided that they shouldn't have consented. It's unfortunate that a case of the latter kind should become so prominent, to the detriment of victims in the former, far more serious cases.
wow. (Score:2)
no. good for you. well done. as of this moment, you basically practically classified 50% or more of sexual relations in between 1 or more participants as rape.
totally leaving out the fact
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So you don't see any difference between having bad sex and being held down and having bad sex forced on you. Or being asleep while bad sex is forced on you.
Revealing.
PS: To the best of my knowledge, both women didn't have sex with him again after those incidents.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange-sweden
> Miss A then realised he was trying to have unprotected sex with her. She told police that she had tried a number of times to reach for a condom but Assange had stopped her by holding her arms and pinning her legs.
> Miss A said Assange was still staying in her flat but they were not having sex because he had "exceeded the limits of what she felt she could accept"
And anyway, that is not the incident for which he may be charged with rape.
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In one case, a condom broke, she tried to grab a new condom but couldn't because he held her down.
Please cite your source for this. I have never read anywhere that this occurred but in your statement. The issue with Anna according to the article is:
This alleged victim is "convinced Assange broke the condom by the glans and then continued to ejaculation", Emmerson says of AA's statement.
Now tell me this, how many people have had the bad luck of a broken condom during sex and didn't know it until after everyone was done? I know I have.
One addition, outstanding unity100 human (Score:2)
The same Bonnier business which received funds from the
mod parent up (Score:2)
Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
For some reason the UK seems to roll over when it comes to extradition warrants. Someone will probably try to blame the EU (as TFA seems to) but it does not affect other EU countries. For example there was a case last week where some German men were found guilty of various war crimes while they were stationed at concentration camps in Italy, but none of them will be extradited. Germany only extradites people with their consent.
Assange has a long hard battle ahead I think.
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You can't say long and hard when talking about rape cases, it's a no-no.
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Assange has a long hard battle ahead I think.
You had to fit "long" and "hard" in there, didn't you?
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You had to fit "long" and "hard" in there, didn't you?
That's what she said!
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Germany only extradites people with their consent.
Wrong: Germany just can't extradite its own citizens without passing a law specifically for this purpose.
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And the law would probably not pass constitutional review. E.g. Austria does not extradite it's own citizens, nor does it extradite if there is the risk of the capital punishment. Btw, if I got that right, the most stringent view has Portugal that does not recognize life sentences and does not extradite if there is a risk of such a sentence.
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There's a specific provision in German constitution that permits that a German citizen is extradited, through very strict processes, but it's possible. It's indeed unlike just about every European country. It's a legacy of post WWII, to allow for German war criminals to be extraded and judged.
Most other European countries simply don't extradite their citizens (I'm not sure about the UK, actually: does it extradite its subjects or does it just wait for the CIA to kidnap them?) AND they don't extradite anyone
White Bronco (Score:2)
suspicion (Score:2)
the only thing that I suspect in all of this is that Assange is an asshole, and rips condoms on purpose. Beyond that I don't care about him, but his work with the Wikileaks is very important regardless and the materials they publish are excellent and need to be revealed.
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Non sequiturs make me eat lampshades.
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Speaking of lampshades, I think I'll have the tuna salad on whole wheat.
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Oh, it's secret. Got it. The lack of evidence proves it.
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Well none, obviously. What would the U.S. even have to gain from Assange's arrest? It's not like he was threatening them in any way. Besides, the CIA doesn't do bad stuff like frame people. Only other government's intelligence agencies do bad stuff like that.
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Hate to say this, but Assange isn't important enough for the US government to bother with, when all is said and done.
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I'm not so sure.
Lest we forget, Wikileaks seriously embarrassed the US government not so long ago. I think the purpose of this is less to punish Assange and more pour encourager les autres (or more accurately, discourager) - from having anything to do with leaking information.
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Exposing the nasty secret memos of the State Department (many of which have and will cause serious diplomatic problems for years to come) and also exposing serious weaknesses in their security, among other offenses. That's no laughing matter. People have been assassinated over MUCH less.
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You have to remember that the U.S. government is completely incompetent except for secret conspiracies, they call pull those off without anyone blabbing anything about it.
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ext you'll be saying that the U.S. would be willing to frame someone for a sex crime just to put a pro-U.S. puppet in charge of the IMF and ensure the reelection of their pro-U.S. puppet in France.
Thats a brilliant theory! How is the Strauss Kahn case going anyways?
Whats that, charges likely to be dropped, Strauss Kahn likely to run for the presidency still?
Oh, ok. Guess thats part of the secret illuminati plan as well?
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Strauss Kahn's political career is over and a pro-U.S. puppet is in charge of the IMF. I would call that a pretty successful operation. The goal was never an actual conviction.
And no Illuminati or tin foil hats necessary. Just an agency with a long and well-documented history [amazon.com] of these sorts of operations to protect U.S. interests.
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Might be credible if you had a shred of evidence to back your claims up; otherwise, how do you intend to separate yourself from scores of other certifiably nuts conspiracy theorists?
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I'll see if I can get the CIA to send you a signed confession.
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Isn't he Australian?
Re:farking bastiges! (Score:4, Informative)
It's not deportation, it's extradition, there's a difference.
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Yes
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The difference is that back when most people were supposedly ignorant and had little means to access information, there was a real divide created in the country between supporters and detractors of Dreyfus. Today only a tiny proportion of any Western country cares about any stance but the one promoted by government and the popular media.
We think that the Internet etc. make us more free, but the wealth of modern methods of transmitting information simply means being flooded with propaganda more effectively t
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I mean, isn't it obvious that they just want him out of the way since he exposed some of their dirty little secrets, thus they created this whole sex crime charge to achieve that?
Yeah, the Swedes are pissed because he told the world what's really in their chocolate.
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You really like ranting, don't you.
You think everyone in this discussion is american. What an americocentric idiot you are.
I suppose I should take it as a compliment that you mistake me for a native speaker.
You think it's reason to regard all arguments against Assange only in isolation, so nothing amounts to much, but you weave everything against the accusers into a big conspiracy theory.
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If not, then congratulations, you just let your emotions judge and convict an entire country's population of being unforgivable due to some pseudoanonymous comments people made on the Internet.
I really hope you don't hold any position of power or serious responsibility in your day job that requires objective analysis.