As the U.S. gov't tightens the noose on Julian Assange, Ian Welsh says: "Anyone who thinks this is just about sexual misconduct . . ."

CNN reports: "Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa on Saturday defended his country's decision to grant WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange asylum, slamming Great Britain's behavior toward Ecuador as 'intolerable' and 'unacceptable.' "

"This isn't about sexual misconduct. Anyone who is stupid enough to think that anyone not named Assange would have caused Britain to threaten to violate an embassy is too stupid to be allowed out in public."

-- Ian Welsh, in "Assange and Wikileaks: the basics"

by Ken

I apologize for harping on the subject, but I can't help feeling I haven't expressed clearly what stinks so bad to me about the U.S. government's cutthroat campaign to put WikiLeaks (literally) out of business and the man behind it, Julian Assange, worse than that. It's not quite a frame-up, but there's not much doubt in my mind that our government, under pressure from Western political and economic elites, is using those allegations in Sweden (which, while certainly not to be dismissed out of hand, are not at all what the public has been led to think they are) as a way to deprive Assange of his freedom, and quite likely to drag the poor son of a bitch into its unkindly (to put it mildly) clutches.

Oh, I've alluded to much of what smells to me about the story. Luckily, Ian Welsh has a new post in which he has patiently set out the dots in this story and then carefully connected them.

In my Thursday post, in which I noted that our friends/accomplices the Brits "are prepared to huff and puff and blow the [Ecuadorian] embassy down," some of you will recall that I added as an update this post of Ian's in its entirety:

Pinochet had women raped by dogs and Britain wouldn’t extradite him
Posted: 16 Aug 2012 06:48 AM PDT

Yes, he did.

So I don’t want to hear anything from Britain about how important extradition is to them or how important rape accusations are.

Now Ian is offering a post called "Assange and Wikileaks: the basics." You'll note that he's careful not to dismiss the accusations made by the two women in Sweden, pointing out that "only 3 people" know whether Assange did anything wrong. However, the public has been wildly misled about the nature of those charges and Assange's response to the Swedish prosecutors' quest for his cooperation, and the bizarre handling of the matter by both the Swedish and British governments sure fits in with the powerful stench attached to what looks awfully like a U.S. gov't plan to get Assange in its clutches (after first putting a chokehold on WikiLeaks's finances). I apologize for the crude boldface highlighting, which is strictly my doing. The stuff that isn't boldfaced isn't necessarily less interesting or important.

Assange and Wikileaks: the basics
2012 AUGUST 18

by Ian Welsh

Sigh, read the actual accusations. They have been translated into English. The accusation would not amount to rape in Britain, Canada or the US. The best wording I can think of is "sexual misconduct". They are also, straight up, he said, she said, and rest entirely on credibility. There are no witnesses to the actual acts other than Assange and the two women (who spoke to each other before going to the police) and no physical evidence. This is not to say that if Assange did what he is accused of he did not do something wrong. If. You don't know if he did, and neither do I. Only 3 people do.

Assange has not been charged, he is wanted for questioning. Sweden is refusing to question him in England. I note that they have questioned a man accused of murder in another country.

The way the case has been treated is vastly disproportionate to how people wanted for questioning about such a crime are usually treated.

Ecuador said they would hand over Assange under one condition: Sweden promised not to extradite him to the US. Sweden refused.

Sweden engaged in illegal extraditions on behalf of the US in the past, and handed people over to be tortured. No one has gone to jail for those crimes. Since no one was punished, I can't see why Sweden wouldn't do it again. Certainly Assange would be a fool to take the chance, because if he winds up in the US he will be thrown into an isolation cell and treated in a way which amounts to torture. This isn't in question, the US has done it in other high profile cases.

Anyone who thinks this is just about sexual misconduct . . .

Yeah.

As for Assange, his long game is simple. He will run, in absentia, in the next Australian elections. He is more than popular enough to be elected. Once he is an MP, he can't be touched.

What Assange did, with Wikileaks, was engage in actual journalism. He was the last attempt to play under the rules of the current, corrupt system. What Wikileaks did was straight up journalism, no different than the Pentagon papers. Immediately afterwards, VISA, Mastercard and PayPal shut down all donations to Wikileaks, despite the fact that Wikileaks had been convicted of no crime. If an individual or organization can be shut out of the modern payments without any legal procedings, then there is no rule of law that matters. It is impossible to live in the modern world beyond a subsistence level if one is shut out of the electronic payments system.

Now Britain has threatened to storm an embassy. Be assured that if they are stupid enough to do it, British diplomats WILL die as a result. Even now, with Britain, the US and Canada saying there is no right to asylum, there will be huge consequences. The entire asylum system is now threatened, because any nation unhappy with someone being offered Asylum in any of those countries will just say "but you said you don't believe in asylum. We're not letting this person out of the country."

Britain itself has given asylum to people accused of far, far worse crimes than Assange, and yet they are willing to trash the Asylum system over this? This isn't about sexual misconduct. Anyone who is stupid enough to think that anyone not named Assange would have caused Britain to threaten to violate an embassy is too stupid to be allowed out in public.

UPDATE ON JUST FOREIGN POLICY'S REWARD OFFER TO WIKILEAKS FOR INFO ON THE TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT

As of post time tonight, the "crowdsourced" reward, the amount, which was $7856 at my post time last night, was up to $11939. You can join the crowd here.

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