The arrest warrants issued by Swedish authorities should not be recognised, and Britain should refuse extradiction for the following reasons:
1. The quality of the allegations of sexual harrassment
2. The expectation that Sweden will use the warrants as a means of delivering Assange to the US authorities.
When you look at the allegations of sexual harrassment, they have no merit. By that I mean they are assertions which a person could easily back out of. Rape is not so vague. These allegations are vague in respect to all alegations. They are a beat up. One need only look at the evidence and the context. Consider the following from this NZ Herald article:
1. The US authorities have a bad reputation of fabricating evidence to persecute people who disclose state secrets. I can cite 3 examples raised in the NZ Herald. In this case, they are acting through Swedish authorities. The women 'raped' are probably CIA operatives based in Sweden.
2. Apparently "one woman accused Assange of pinning her down and refusing to use a condom". Pinning someone down need not be coercive, and of course it need not occur, as its a matter of conjecture. An accusation that they can walk away from. He might have initially refused to use a condom, but eventually consented. Otherwise she probably would not have waited more than a month before making a charge of rape....by 2 women.
3. "That woman also accused of Assange of molesting her in a way "designed to violate her sexual integrity" several days later". What does this imply? For starters, what is 'sexual integrity'. Did he tight her tits off, and spit them across the room? And if she was coerced into something, why is she going back 3 days later.
4. "A second woman accused Assange of having sex with her without a condom while she was asleep at her Stockholm home". If she was asleep, how does she remember? She was accosted in bed? The implication is that he demanded using a condom the 2nd time, otherwise she would not have struck around for the first time. He must have run out? So he did the right thing the first time, but he was short a condom the 2nd. This might make sense, but are we to believe that he ran out of condoms with two different women, or this is just part of his sales pitch?
5. Most importantly, "both women only made the claims after finding out about each other's relationships with Assange". i.e. They thought they were special. i.e. Jilted CIA operatives. Nice story.
The idea of having 3 witnesses is supposed to place the issue 'beyond reasonable doubt'. Watch as these accusations disappear. This is the evil US empire at work. Manipulation and 'slight of hand'. I don't believe it. There is far more evidence to suggest that these are CIA operatives fabricating stories to get Assange extradited. Once he is on US soil, these 'witnesses' will slightly modify their stories.
I personally do not think the Swedish authorities are involved. I do think the witnesses are CIA operatives who have been told to get close to Assange because the CIA knew what they were doing, or knew that they intended to release information. The reason I know that is because Assange lacks intellectual integrity, so there are destined to be people within his organisation who are likely to be unhappy with his efforts. Of course, the CIA also have the power to intercept communications, but if Assange is paranoia, then they needed to get close to him because he was going to avoid communications which can be traced. This is why women from Aug 15th are only now making claims against him. This is when the CIA started tracking him.
In this context, the British authorities should not release Assange. If they do, the Swedish authorities ought not to extradite him either to the USA. Australia ought to be taking action as well, since there is no reason to think that Australia does not have a case either, and he is an Australian citizen. Do I expect the Australian government to act? No, they always cow-tow to US authority.
I do think WikiLeaks as acted with a lack of integrity insofar as the information they have released. There is a lack of integrity in the principles, and I dare say, this is because of their concrete, incoherent rationalisations they have made about the US. The way the US has behaved merely highlights the justification for some effort. I just think they could have executed their efforts better. But don't think for a moment that the US would have stopped short of pursuing this guy on the 'off-chance' he would be a 'principled guy'. They were always going to make an example out of him. That is how governments act - 'shock and awe' - fear is their methodology for getting you to do anything from paying tax, to stop speeding, to not disclosing information. This is the way they act. Whistleblowing is ok, so long as you don't 'blow on them'.
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Author
Andrew Sheldon
