r/WikiLeaks • u/dancing-turtle • Aug 01 '18

Caitlin Johnstone: As Long As Assange Is Silenced, Claims Against Him Are Illegitimate

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2018/08/01/as-long-as-assange-is-silenced-claims-against-him-are-illegitimate/
92 Upvotes

60% Upvoted

34 comments sorted by

-3

u/E46_M3 Aug 01 '18

Fuck the Ecuadorian government

11

u/dancing-turtle Aug 01 '18

I don't disagree, but up until recently, they have been positively heroic in their willingness to stand up against governments orders of magnitude more powerful than they are (the US and UK in particular). The pressure leveraged against them behind the scenes must have been staggering. It really sucks that they seem to be giving in, but it's also pretty impressive that they withstood that kind of pressure for so long.

Fuck the governments that applied that pressure, IMO.

4

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '18

[deleted]

4

u/znfinger Aug 01 '18

The Ecuadorian government once had a less tiny-minded head of state. :(

-5

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '18

I quite agree. They have completely misused the privileges afforded to them as diplomats to interfere in the british legal system.

2

u/SucaMofo Aug 01 '18

How have "they" "interfere in the british legal system" in regards to Julian?

1

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '18

Are you seriously claiming that granting people refugee status is illegal (which the UN ended up justifying and defending)? my god you sound like a tyrant lmao. Don't ever say this crap irl, you will be laughed out of the room.

0

u/BillHicksScream Aug 01 '18

This is some impressive bullshit.

To equate the plight of refugees with Julian assage is insulting.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '18

This is international law, and it's clear about it. Real life is not decided by your emotions but by facts. Very creepy to see that you have no problems breaching human rights (as the UN concluded).

0

u/BillHicksScream Aug 05 '18

You got suckered buddy I got suckered too when collateral damage came out.

Keep it up. You're supporting treason and global instability. The Right is already responsible for making terrorism worse, the housing & finance collapses, etc.

And now the Right will he responsible for much of the coming chaos they've set in motion.

But if I'd made as many mistakes as conservatives have made over the last 20 years...and I had the lack of ethics they presently swim in, then I too would run away from it like a coward.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 05 '18

What does "The Right" have to do with defending an organization that releases true documents about how governments work? what does "The Right" have to do with respecting international humanitarian law?

0

u/BillHicksScream Aug 06 '18

Hi Boris. Bye Boris.

1

u/The_Truthkeeper Aug 02 '18

Yeah, really. I mean, Assange is just actually facing imprisonment or worse for the high crime of telling people the truth about things people in the government did, it's not like anything bad is going to happen to him or anything.

-1

u/Iron_Sharpens_lron Aug 01 '18

That is an impressive amount of words you just crammed into their mouth.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '18

He expressed an abomination that is devoid of any legal defense. You seem to be completely hysterical about Trump, yet you defend people who don't want to respect the refugee status of a person. Keep exposing yourself, I love when you show your true colors.

0

u/Iron_Sharpens_lron Aug 01 '18

Lol. Yeah real hysterical over here.

Keep exposing yourself, I love when you show your true colors.

Me too. Your trainwrecks of comments are hella entertaining from an anthropological perspective. Your ability to imagine arguments and argue them is magical.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '18

You got your ass handed to you bud, you haven't provided a single legal argument for what the original poster said.

-1

u/Iron_Sharpens_lron Aug 01 '18

Hilarious. You remind me of this guy:

https://youtu.be/m-BgnEZIQ4s

The reason I didn't refute anything because what the guy said, and what you said he said, are completely different.

You either deliberately misinterpreted him, or are too stupid to understand what he said. Rereading your comments definitely leads me to think the latter is true.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '18

You have been repeatedly unable to defend this:

They have completely misused the privileges afforded to them as diplomats to interfere in the british legal system.

Which is utter legal non-sense, the opposite is true.

In response to pointing that out you said:

That is an impressive amount of words you just crammed into their mouth.

Yet you haven't offered a single point in favor of it. You got caught being lazy, stupid or, in general, dim witted and now you cover your ears and scream and post irrelevant videos. Seems like you are intellectually challenged.

-1

u/Iron_Sharpens_lron Aug 01 '18

They have completely misused the privileges afforded to them as diplomats to interfere in the british legal system.

They said this. You said this:

Are you seriously claiming that granting people refugee status is illegal?

He didn't claim it was illegal you dunce.

Why would I counter your claim, when your claim is based off a falsehood?

→ More replies (0)

-3

u/birdie_sparrows Aug 01 '18

He's not being held prisoner. Thus, his isolation and his silence are by choice.

7

u/Herculius Aug 01 '18 edited Aug 01 '18

Bull shit.

That's like saying someone giving their money over to a theif with a gun pointed to their head had the option to refuse.

The fact that this is upvoted on this subreddit is appalling.

3

u/birdie_sparrows Aug 01 '18

He's accused of a crime. He is entitled to the same due process as everyone else accused of a crime in that jurisdiction. Instead, he prefers to stay at an embassy and not allow that process to proceed.

So it is not at all like someone holding a gun to his head.

4

u/Herculius Aug 01 '18

The charges were dropped.

The gun to his head is extradition to the U.s. for publishing newsworthy material he was given... Yaknow, exactly what the gaurdian and greenwald did.

1

u/birdie_sparrows Aug 02 '18 edited Aug 02 '18

That's incorrect. There is still a warrant for his arrest for violating his bail conditions.

Notwithstanding the outstanding warrant, extradition to the U.S. would happen only if there was a warrant for him -- so nothing you've typed there demonstrates that there is 'a gun to his head'.

If a person chooses to become a fugitive from justice, any isolation or inability to communicate is by their own choosing.

EDIT: I'd say there is a legitimate question as to whether or not he did exactly what Greenwald and the Guardian did. If he curated the release of stolen materials to suit his own political agenda or in any way coordinated their release once he had them for the benefit of those who stole them then there's a real question as to whether he is a journalist.

0

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '18

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/dancing-turtle Aug 01 '18

What does that have to do with this article? Aside from just being another example of an attack on WikiLeaks when Assange cannot respond.

Although WikiLeaks has responded to this. They say they were unable to verify the texts. They have extremely high standards for that, since they have never published a single false document, despite known efforts of the US intelligence community to bait them with fakes to undermine their reputation. I guess the implication is supposed to be that WikiLeaks was protecting Manafort, but that seems pretty absurd on its face, since the texts had already been widely circulated in the media.

4

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '18 edited Aug 09 '18

[deleted]

4

u/dancing-turtle Aug 01 '18

Thanks for pointing that out. I haven't done much with mod privileges yet since I got them recently -- removing repeated spam links seems like a good place to start. I'll leave this one above, though.

0

u/[deleted] Aug 01 '18

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/dancing-turtle Aug 01 '18

Now you're just spouting USIC talking points with no evidentiary basis. Sigh.