Whether Assange is guilty or not, I think its easy to believe he's in danger from torture and abuse in the United States.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
But should only journalists be allowed to expose bad stuff? I mean if I see my neighbor's being robbed, I shouldn't need to contact the New York Times before I call the police, should I? Did Assange leak more than just the DNC's dirty laundry? Because if that's all he leaked, I don't see how what he did wasn't journalism or at least informing the public of stuff we have the right to know. And I don't see how Manning was in the wrong either.
If I recall correctly, Assange leaked information that put a lot of people's lives at risk.
"Any campaign world where an orc samurai can leap off a landcruiser to fight a herd of Bulbasaurs will always have my vote of confidence"
Huh; what else did he leak?
A procrastination in of itself
Names and addresses of people who gave the US information or went to US authorise for help. A ton of women in Turkey got doxed by Wikileaks, I believe that information on the last few Jewish people in Bagdad.
While his leaks didn’t get anyone killed they certainly had the potential to.
Assange has leaked a ton of stuff, the DNC stuff is a pretty minor part of it.
Edited by Silasw on Jan 23rd 2021 at 11:32:18 AM
"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran
There was a lot of misinformation spread about Assange's leaks as well. Deliberate attempts to try and make the actions he did more horrible than they were. One of the things notable is the attempts to pretend legitimate news organizations weren't involved in the wikileak's...leaks. That way when they cracked down on Assange, they could go after organizations like the Guardian and help continue the free flow of leaked information.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Foreign Troper
So whatever one might think of him personally or some of his actions, I honestly believe that what is currently happening to him in prison is nothing short of inhumane and cruel. His health status seems even worse than feared, both physically and mentally.
This sounds pretty terrifying, all in all.
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A procrastination in of itself
Is there any reporting on his conditions? As that entire article is full of emotion and lacks any semblance of objectivity.
"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran
Last I heard, guy's on 24/7 suicide watch and the judge is refusing to turn him over to the US on the grounds that if US authorities don't kill him, he'll definitely do it himself.
Judging by some googling, Pressenza seems to be an extremely sus source. Hardly any other news provider or fact checker has heard of them, except a rag that can be charitably described as right-wing nonsense and who also nobody else has heard of.
Their other stories also...uh...don't distinguish between editorial and reporting.
Edited by Ramidel on Nov 5th 2021 at 6:34:23 AM
I despise hypocrisy, unless of course it is my own.
Foreign Troper
Court rules that Assange can be extradited
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Foreign Troper
He apparently had a stroke in prison
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/julian-assange-prison-stroke-fiancee-b1974525.html
Foreign Troper
And now Assange is to be deported for real
What a sad day for democracy.
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Lost in Space
You break the law, you pay the price. I have absolutely zero sympathy for Assange. He may have once started with noble motives, but when he started selectively leaking documents to push a narrative that coincidentally favored Russian geopolitical interests, he became an enemy of democracy.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Goku Black
Surprised the Uk didn't at least have the Us trade Anne Scholas back in exchange?
Edited by miraculous on Jun 17th 2022 at 6:40:52 AM
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
He's an asset of a literal fascist empire who makes a habit out of brutalizing LGBT people and murdering Ukrainians.
Toss him in the rubbish pile, he's done for.
Sign on for this After The End Fantasy RP.
A procrastination in of itself
Moving over from the US politics thread.
What war crimes did Assange expose? I never followed the Wikileaks stuff in detail, the only prominent exposure I know of is the helicopter video, which I don’t believe was a war crime.
"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran
Foreign Troper
I'm not sure which Helicopter video you are talking about, but I'd say shooting 18 civilians, including 2 journalists, is a pretty textbook example of a war crime?
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Figure of Hourai
Intentionally killing civilians is. Killing civilians in general is not.
No idea what the incident in question is, however.
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Was it this incident?
– filmed from a US Apache helicopter, Crazy Horse 1-8, as it mowed down 11 people on 12 July 2007 in Iraq. The video starkly highlights the lax rules of engagement that allowed the killing of men who were neither engaged with nor threatening US forces.
Two of those Crazy Horse 1-8 killed in east Baghdad that day were the Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and a driver/fixer, Saeed Chmagh, 40.
Their Baghdad bureau chief at the time, Dean Yates, said the US military had repeatedly lied to him – and the world – about what happened, and it was only when Assange released the video (which Wiki Leaks posted with the title Collateral Murder) in April 2010 that the full brutal truth of the killings was exposed.
“What he did was 100% an act of truth-telling, exposing to the world what the war in Iraq looks like and how the US military lied … The US knows how embarrassing Collateral Murder is, how shameful it is to the military – they know that there’s potential war crimes on that tape,” Yates said....
Edited by xyzt on Jun 17th 2022 at 11:14:39 PM
Foreign Troper
Yeah, that's the one. Pretty fucked up stuff.
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A procrastination in of itself
Oh it’s fucked up and the coverup is terrible, but it wasn’t a war crime. Mistaking armed civilians for hostile combatants isn’t a war crime under any definition.
If we remove all the emotion from it incident itself was a case of a US helicopter spotting an unidentified armed group, believing them to be hostile, and then killing them. The group then turned out to be armed civilians in the hire of a US news organisation.
Disturbingly, if we consider that time in Iraq to be a war then the journalists actually may have broken the rules of war due to having non-state armed forces in their employee. The rules of war don’t have any provisions for journalists hiring private security and moving around an active conflict zone, probably because private entities forming their own armed groups inside a war zone is pretty insane.
"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran
Assange lost any sympathy I may have had when he threw Chelsea Manning under the bus to protect himself.
"Yup. That tasted purple."
Which doesn't really change that him being extradited to the US is... still not a good thing?
Because let's be honest, the US doesn't want their hands on him because he's a Russian asset or anything.
He made them look bad - that's pretty much what this has always been about.
Remember that the US is also embargoing a small island nation purely over a grudge from the Cold War. They're sometimes just that petty.
Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Jun 17th 2022 at 10:53:21 AM
Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.
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That said, when I read "suicide risk", I immediately thought of the quotes too.
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."