10,000 up votes!
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That’s exactly the problem with US “justice” - you can’t be sure to actually get a fair trial i.e. Guantanamo, secret FISA courts, Espionage Act.
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That’s why he should be sent to Sweden to be tried on the rape allegations.
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I’m not sure about that. I agree he should have stood trial in Sweden, but the maximum sentence he was facing was far less than the time he spent in the embassy. Also, who knows if it was genuine, but way back at the beginning, he offered to turn himself over to Sweden if they would guarantee not to extradite him to the US, and they declined.
The recent actions of the US government certainly bear out his fear of that.
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I don’t think his time as a fugitive is considered time served for a possible conviction. As far as whether it’s likely he was guilty - I believe the women deserve their day in court. Still.
edit: And I’ll believe them first - he ran from justice - that doesn’t indicate his own confidence in his acquittal.
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I don’t think you need to give a fuck about Assange to give a fuck about the US government de facto claiming global authority to extradite and try people who embarrass it. They always choose an unsympathetic character when they want to establish a precedent for abuse of government power. Once they have the precedent, they can apply it to everyone. That’s why the ACLU defended a klansman in a free speech case.
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I don’t think you have to give a fuck about the US to demand justice for rape victims.
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“I didn’t like the thought of facing trial for the shit I allegedly did and felt I was above the law. I also taunted and actively trolled those who sought justice and fucked with the American political landscape and smeared shit on the walls… But I really am sorry. Bail?”
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As reasonable as it is for people to be afraid of America’s long reach and lack of real justice system, I feel like the one part of Assange’s story that is plainly just false is the idea that somehow being sent to Sweden would leave Assange more vulnerable to extradition to the US.
If the US wanted Assange which would be easier:
- Ask their historic ally and five eyes partner the UK to arrest Assange and extradite?
- Ask Sweden to trump up rape charges so that Sweden could ask the UK to arrest Assange to extradite and then Sweden could extradite to the US?
Basically it just doesn’t check out.
The only weird thing about the case is that I’m not used to seeing people like Assange have even local police come after them for rape, let alone an international effort. But I’ve also learned that Sweden actually treats sexual assault and rape like a violent crime instead of treating it like it was small claims court, so maybe the only “weird” thing is that Sweden is a more just society.
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I think he should face trial in Sweden too, as I said above. I was not suggesting that he shouldn’t, just that if that’s what he was scared of, hiding in the embassy was a stupid way to avoid it, since he spent way longer there than his maximum possible sentence in Sweden. This suggests that he was genuinely (and legitimately) scared of being extradited to the US, rather than of standing trial in Sweden.
Just because he was suckered by the sunk cost fallacy doesn’t mean that he wasn’t fleeing rape charges.
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As I said above, I think he should be extradited to Sweden to stand trial for rape. I made that clear in my original post, and never suggested otherwise.
This is completely unrelated to whether he should be extradited to America for embarrassing powerful people.. I see a lot of people implicitly conflating those two things, which I find really dishonest. You don’t have to care about him to care about the precedent that extraditing him to the US would establish.
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That particular poisoning was dioxin not polonium.
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FIFY, at no charge.
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I apologise unreservedly to those who consider that I have disrespected them by the way I have pursued my case.
“I’m sorry if you were offended.”
“Hey! That’s not a real apology!”
“Okay, I’m unreservedly sorry if you consider yourself offended.”
“That’s better!”
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Well, at least he will get proper tea now, right?
It’s also pretty amazing how Wikileaks seems to be the only organization around that hasn’t published any information leaked from the Trump White House.
It’s almost as if “transparency” and “public interest” and “holding powerful people accountable for their actions” were never really Assange’s priorities in the first place.
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You know he spends his life on other peoples couches.
Maybe he would have been smearing shit on the walls, not cleaning up after his cat and misusing others office products no matter where he spent the last 7 years.
Someone else already responded similar to what I have to say to your reply:
