About Assange
UK approves extradition of Julian Assange.
How is Russia!
Murders and rapists walk away with a few months, and someone exposing shitty government secrets that endangers the population are threated like Hitler.
It’s ironic that the "free" world and the "open" society are going to torture Julian Assange in part for exposing documents about torturing people.
The UK government just officially sanctioned somebody to literal fucking torture. Don't let this hypocrisy be forgotten whenever the UK government claims to care about human rights. Christ.
In Devil we trust.
Discuss, ladies and gentlemen.
How is Russia!
Murders and rapists walk away with a few months, and someone exposing shitty government secrets that endangers the population are threated like Hitler.
It’s ironic that the "free" world and the "open" society are going to torture Julian Assange in part for exposing documents about torturing people.
The UK government just officially sanctioned somebody to literal fucking torture. Don't let this hypocrisy be forgotten whenever the UK government claims to care about human rights. Christ.
In Devil we trust.
Discuss, ladies and gentlemen.
Comments (63)
Hard to care about the guy. He wanted to help Trump get elected.
Assange was helping the Russian government and Trump exchange information from stolen emails from Hillary Clinton and the DNC. No sympathy for the guy.
I really do not care anymore.
Anyone who think the Assange story is about Clinton, or Fox, or whatever other irrelevant bullshit, and not the fact that the US is a bunch of civilian-murdering thugs, is just another propagandized moron repeating the lines fed to them by the US war machine.
It has nothing to do with Clinton. Try not to be distracted.
When?
They don't care what you believe.
Quoting Banno
Labour have never not been anything but committed lapdogs of US power. If Albanese does anything, it would be an enormous surprise.
They want information.
It only helps the US for people to believe that. There's no downside.
:wink: Fair call.
No, there is a "golden thread" (Rumpole of the Bailey...) in US political thinking that is worthy of note, but which shows itself now only sporadically. It consists in a capacity for self-correction.
This whole business works against it.
Self-correction only occurs when one knows one has done badly. Collateral murder shows the US doing badly, but instead of taking it on board and seeking to improve it has resorted to belligerent denial.
That's not true. The authenticity of the data was confirmed by the US military and a public discussion about the legality of the action took place.
Yes. The First Amendment protects journalists, and the spirit of it might have been extended to Assange, but the information about that war crime was classified. It would have eventually been unclassified and made available. Exposing it in the way Aasange did potentially compromised American agendas.
As it happened, he continued to be a pain in the ass, exposing CIA hacking tools and so forth.
"Compromising American agendas" is the work of heroes.
Maybe if it is so terrible that a piece of shit like Clinton is shown to be a piece of shit, any minimal self-reflection ought to lead to the conclusion that a piece of shit probably shouldn't be the front-runner to lead American empire, instead of getting mad at the person who showed said piece of shit to be a piece of shit.
When did @Frank swap accounts anyway?
Ahhhh.... how I wish.
But here I am...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/17/britain-julian-assange-extradition-priti-patel-us
No. Exposing atrocities is not a crime, per se. The crimes Assange is charged with are things like: espionage, conspiracy to commit espionage, theft of property belonging to the US government, general conspiracy, and violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. These are real crimes, and it appears he's guilty of committing at least some of them. It seems heroic when you consider the atrocities he exposed, but that's not the full picture. He also exposed the names of people who were working intelligence, effectively removing these assets. He put some people's lives in danger, such as Afghans and Iraqi civilians who were passing information to the US military). He also exposed some US espionage tactics, thus hurting the US ability to gather intelligence. And as others noted, he helped get Donald Trump elected by publishing illegally obtained DNC emails. Trump notably said, "I love Wikileaks" - but that's because wikileaks helped him. This may please Trump supporters, but that's hardly a reasonable standard for forgiveness. Politics is dirty enough without encouraging criminal activity to make it even dirtier. If he isn't prosecuted, it sends a pretty bad message to future hackers with their own agenda.
Then those laws are bad laws. Might pay to remember that the holocaust was perfectly legal too, and that people who are not fucking morons can usually make moral judgements independently of law.
Quoting Relativist
This is a lie.
Quoting Relativist
This is good.
Quoting Relativist
The US helped get Donald Trump getting elected by electing Donald Trump, and if you find yourself going to bat for a piece of shit organization like the DNC, then you deserve whatever piece of shit politicians you get. Ordinary American people enjoy fascism of their own independent volition, and there's really no need to excuse them for their embrace of it.
Quoting Relativist
Fixed it for you.
You are not smarter than a donkey. Even more. A donkey is smarter than you. He wants to reason.
That's the thing.
*******
The Assange case is a symptom. Bernie Sanders makes the diagnosis about what the pathology is.
Imagine from what infinite space of privilege and ivory tower safety it takes to think that those who expose the criminalities of the most blood-thirsty nation of Earth ought to perform just-so, as demanded by some bourgeois fetishization of ritual and aesthetics.\
It would have been better for Assange to have colluded with more foreign nations, all the better to maximize his impact. His mistake was in not having done more damage to the US, incapacitating enough.
Poke the crocodile, get eaten.
Would-be Assanges, are you reading this?
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/06/18/assange-is-doing-his-most-important-work-yet/
Apparently, since 1917 ... The question is besides the point I've raised. As far illegality is concerned, Assange has been indicted for espionage, not "collusion" which is not a crime (except re: antitrust laws). Colluding with Russia's interference in US elections outted – compromised – him as a tool of the Kremlin and thereby undermines him both legally in the US and in the theatre of Realpolitik. Ergo, stupid. :shade:
Ah, the fragility of democracy is so vulnerable to truth isn't it? One cannot chose fairly between liars when one of them is exposed.
:sad: If only Assange had read Aristotle!
Quoting StreetlightYou think espionage, and hacking into private computers should be legal? Sorry, but that's crazy.
Quoting Streetlight
Our enemies/rivals- they're engaged in espionage against us, so (in effect) you're arguing that it's good to give them an advantage. Again, that's crazy.
Quoting Streetlight
In a perfect world, everyone would make rational, fact based decisions about whom to vote for. We don't live in that world, as is obvious when you consider that 70% of Republicans STILL believe the 2020 election was stolen. Unfortunately, triggering emotions is part of the game.
Absolutely, we learned some nasty crap about the DNC from the emails that were obtained criminally. I hope the revelations lead to improvements. Aside from criminality, it's also one-sided: do you seriously think the RNC is saintly? Imagine what Republican leaders say about Trump in private!
I'm also outraged by some of the revelations, and I hope they've led to improvements. We DO have whistle-blower laws, and perhaps they could be improved. But it's naive to suggest that espionage against the US, and computer security intrusions, should be legal.
I don't know who this 'our' is. US foreign policy is positively genocidal, and anything that undermines it is for the betterment of the Earth - including most American people, whose living standards are asphyxiated in service of US Empire.
Quoting Relativist
Espionage against the US should be rewarded. Especially since that 'espionage' apparently simply equates to: exposing US war crimes and international murder. Yes, I absolutely want more of that, and if you gave one single damn about the US, you would too.
Quoting Relativist
The differences between the RNC and DNC are aesthetic, and amount to which colors you like to dress up in. If anything I despise the DNC even more for pretending to be an opposition to the RNC, while in fact its only job - literally its only function - is to stave off any actual change, while acting as seat-warmers in the meantime. When in comes to Assange - or foreign policy for that matter - they walk in lockstep. The mountains of dead who they are equally responsible for overseas do not care if the bombs which ripped them to shreds were marked with Elephants or Donkeys, and neither do I. There has not been a single US president since WWII who has not been a war criminal deserving of hanging at the Hague.
When we say we belong to the "free" world, it will be because we assume that the press is free here. Assange shows the problem, because an amateur did the work that professional journalists should have done. You have to be very naive to believe that the press is free. The oligarchs have always wanted it as tied up as in North Korea, but nobody like Assange has left so many sacred cows of the newspapers, so many newspapers, news networks and others... with their asses in the air. The media's job is to decorate the cave nicely. Heidegger already said it: "the public light obscures everything". One false step and you go to the gulag, but we have to interpret that these are things that only happen in Russia!
Here's a few important ones:Russia, China, North Korea, Iran.
Quoting Streetlight:yikes:
Sounds like an irrational leap: the US has done some bad things, therefore it only does bad things...
Well then America's shite because they're all still around.
I hate bullies. A example:
My sense of justice is disgusted by the fucking coyote and I wish I could pamper the poor kitty.
- the kitten = Assange or Anna Stepanovna Politkóvskaya.
- the coyote = the oligarchs of any powerful nation and the resources at their disposal.
According to the oligarchs, what is happening to Assange and Politkóvskaya is "the order of things".
Well, my moral sense is repugnant to that "order of things." I wish I could stick a stick up the coyote's ass.
But, of course, I hate bullies. I have always hated them. I was never among them or among those who laughed at their shitty occurrences.
The US is unique and incomparable in the scale of death and suffering it metes out. No other country, or set of countries combined, even comes close. It is a singularly murderous state. Any and all that can be done to undermine its presence on the world stage is a Platonic Good. Assange is a hero who has worked to do this, and should be celebrated accordingly.
Quoting Relativist
I did not ask who the enemies are. I asked who the 'our' is. Because the US works neither in my interest, nor yours.
... not until he has sacrificed himself like all genuine heroes do.
:fire:
Your anti-"Pax Americana" jeremiads from the suburbs of the globe are as historically well-sourced as they are ideologically myopic and luxuriously lacking of skin in the game. At least, I'm guessing, the hegemon in your neighborhood, Street, is your kind of "Platonically Good" hegemon for providing a counter to "The Great Satan". :naughty:
Sorry, I don't believe he owes you the fulfilment of your teenage/religious-Christological fantasies. Having exposed American murder and callousness at great determent to himself is quite enough. But if you want Hollywood or the Bible, you can always go the cinema and watch something as stupid as your Christian sacrificial fantasies.
Quoting 180 Proof
This is stupid and wrong. I live in what is effectively an American army base - as do you - whose effect is nothing but detrimental and tax-base sucking - funding your fucking oligarchs, while your stupid fucking wars get my - and your - neighbours killed. Take your recycled Taleb-derivitive advertising slogans and stick 'em in the thought-void cliche bin where they belong.
1: American gunship helicopter opening fire on Iraqi civilians as American soldiers laugh behind.
2: US military abusing the minor Iraqi children in most brutal inhumane way; They made them chant "Fck Iraq, I love pork"; They make thirsty kids run for a water bottle from running military vehicle.
3: Apache helicopter of US military firing over a residential street as civilians run to look for shelter.
4: US marines cheer after shooting down an Iraqi civilian.
5: British soldiers beating Iraqi minors to the pulp, as the other soldier cheers with commentary.
6: US personnels opened fire at a bus full of civilians.
7: A US soldier talks about the rape he & his teammate committed with 15 y/O Iraqi girls.
8: Famous video of Wikileaks where US warplane bombing an Iraqi street full of civilians in Fallujah.
9: US soldiers celebrate after setting fire in an Iraqi wheat field.
10: US army bombarding the outskirts of Baghdad where civilians suffered had the most number of casualties.
11: US soldiers firing at a mosque for fun & burst in laughter after demolishing it.
Clips to be found here:
[tweet]https://twitter.com/Dragonvibee/status/1538893819889868800[/tweet]
This is the American dream.
ABC News.
How this will pan out with David McBride, and what it might indicate about Australian government thought concerning Assange are yet to be seen.