Julian Assange is now an Ecuadoran citizen, but the UK government still won't let him out of the embassy

[Michael_R_Smith]

Now that Assange is a citizen they could employ him as a diplomat for a week, to get him out of the country but thats a rude and dishonorable action and they probably want to avoid doing that to the UK.

[Michael_R_Smith]

@anon27007144

Counterpoint: the United States hasn’t won a war since World War II

What about the 1990 Gulf war?

[Wanderfound]

A relevant quick excerpt from this:

Intercepted Podcast: Who's Afraid of the Alt-Deep State?

JS: You know, there are some very radical Assange and WikiLeaks partisans, who sort of argue, well, the Don, Jr. DMs, that’s just evidence of the kind of fifth dimensional chess that Julian was playing with the Trump people. And I sort of viewed it more in the same way that I saw one of your comments, I sort of look at that and I say, “Why on earth are you assisting what is essentially a fascist force or a fascist-enabling force that, you know, has taken power in this country.”

BB: They’ll find several different things, depending on who they are. Some of them, like Kim Dotcom, openly support Trump and think it’s totally appropriate for him to have done that. There’s others who will not acknowledge that this was actually supporting Trump, and they’ll tend to address one or two portions of a conversation that has really six or seven actual aspects to it.

The most important aspect of this, the most critical one is Assange saying that the “kicker” of this scheme whereby Trump Junior would provide Trump’s taxes to WikiLeaks, you know, would allow him to change the “perceptions” about you know him being “pro-Trump and pro-Putin,” which he goes on to claim is a canard put forth by the Hillary Clinton people, here he is talking to the Trump people and eventually giving them advice about contesting election and earlier providing them information about a political action committee that he wrongly thinks was also a pro-Iraq political action committee, and denouncing it as libel, that he’s pro-Trump.

Beyond that, this thing about him giving the tax returns to Assange. But WikiLeaks does not, in my memory, release documents that have been given to them by the institution in question. There would be really no point for that. WikiLeaks has always been something where a leaker provides information about an institution and forces transparency on it.

So presumably and it’s pretty clear in this conversation it would not be an exception, obviously it wouldn’t change perceptions about Assange or Trump if it was known, if he comes out and said, “Oh yeah, the Trump people gave me this and we’re releasing it.” It would serve no purpose. So clearly this was going to be a fraud against everyone, in which they were going to sort of pretend that they had gotten it via their usual means.

[anon27007144]

The 1990 Gulf War is still going on. There was a major military phase, followed by low intensity military action until 2003, then another major military phase until 2011, then low intensity military action until now. Whatever our objective is, we seem unable to accomplish it.

[Michael_R_Smith]

By the same argument the first world war continued on to 1945. You have to draw the line somewhere.

[anon27007144]

I know, but at which point?

Timeline of United States military operations

[anon89609066]

Ok, take a devil’s advocate position for a minute. Say he didn’t commit those crimes, is 100 percent innocent. He’s head of a very prominent journal/website/etc. What do you do when you’re totally guilt free innocent but your name is on the line? You fight. You lawyer up with the best team money can buy. You use your position of authority to drum up support and GoFundMe a sizeable egg to toss at your lawyers to fight for your side. You walk out of there, with lawyers at your side and a game plan. You let em cuff you, get the photos, splay it out on the intertubes how unfair this whole thing is, and you not only face justice, but you STARE IT DOWN. That’s what he should have done 5 years ago…

If he were innocent…

[Anselm]

Because not just don’t the USA recognise the courts in question, they even have a law on the books that theoretically empowers the President to authorise a military invasion of the Netherlands (incidentally a NATO partner nation) in order to free any US service members who are about to stand trial before the International Court of Justice in The Hague. There are certain advantages to being a 750lb gorilla.

[benhutchings]

Now that Assange is a citizen they could employ him as a diplomat for a week …

They can’t just nominate anyone as a diplomat and get them immunity. It’s up to the host country to decide whether they accept another country’s choice of diplomats.

[jyoti]

Good. No longer have to feel ashamed about this rapist arsehole and Russian colluder being Australian. He’s Ecuador’s problem now.

[GulliverFoyle]

@karl_jones

I did not understand the appalling cruelty of tarring and feathering

Indeed. Same as with arguing reductio ad Hitlerum, when someone likens being criticized on the internet to lynchings and tarrings, they’ve lost all credibility.

@anotherone

I just want to know why no one in the U.S. and been prosecuted or even indicted by the international courts for our war crimes?

[anon30760835]

@Brainspore

Alternate theory: Assange isn’t really a “hero” at all, but rather a self-serving free agent/asshole whose interests occasionally coincide with the greater good.

I’m glad you noted the implied quotes around my use of the word. He’s no hero, but CONTEXT.

[anon30760835]

But he is SUCH a strine!

[Michael_R_Smith]

But if the UK refuses, don’t they have to eject the offender from the country?

[anon67018654]

How interesting. The German and English language quite disagree with each other.

The German one states that wood tar had been used, which doesn’t need to be heated as it is viscous at normal temperatures.

The English wiki explicitly mentions hot tar.

The clip I can’t quite decipher. Is that tar supposed to be hot?

Cursory goggling seems to indicate that viscous wood tar would have been used in British and American tarring, with no blistering on the victim.

[anotherone]

@Anselm

There are certain advantages to being a 750lb gorilla.

You could say that. I can’t help but think this “advantage” does more harm to the gorilla than the jungle.

[Anselm]

Remember that Assange is in the Ecuadorean embassy building already, which while technically not Ecuadorean sovereign soil might just as well be, as far as the UK forcing him to do anything he doesn’t want to do is concerned. If getting him out of there was simply a matter of extraditing him from the UK they would have done that years ago.
Generally if country X refuses to accredit a would-be diplomat from country Y there’s little point in that person holing up in country Y’s embassy to X. They would simply take the next flight home and presumably be reassigned to country Y’s embassy to country Z or something. Assange’s main problem, however, is that he basically skipped bail in the UK and is therefore liable to be arrested for that by UK police when he sets foot outside the Ecuadorean embassy building, even if he just wants to go straight to Heathrow. Once Assange is in UK custody the US could then presumably ask the UK to pass him along, even though so far there have been no official charges filed against him. (Sweden seems to be out of the picture because whatever douchebaggery he was or wasn’t up to in Sweden has passed the statute of limitations.)