Assange...

[Nefertiti2]

No, but Daniel Ellsberg can't be the de facto answer every time someone leaks state secrets.

...because it's embarrassing to your argument.

[WOM]

...because it's embarrassing to your argument.

Because governments need to be able to keep some things secret whether their contractors and employees believe otherwise.

Cue war crimes comment.....

[Nefertiti2]

yes why should anyone care about war crimes? it's so old hat. Trump's pardoned them all anyway.

[DCI Harry Batt]

WOM, I don't really have any idea what you're arguing or why. Maybe if you said what it was you think should happen, now, and why, that would help.

[caja-dglh]

He's only been in prison cos of running off into hiding, hasn't he?. He was hiding for a long time, but that wasn't imprisonment.

Right - he is in prison for breaching his bail. That he determined to do this for a years in an Ecuadorian embassy was his choice and simply prolonged his wait for being in breach of bail. Now in the trial it has been found he shouldn't go to the US because he won't get a fair trial.

I don't really see the flaw in justice here, unless you want cases found in absentia.

[WOM]

WOM, I don't really have any idea what you're arguing or why. Maybe if you said what it was you think should happen, now, and why, that would help.

I'm trying to reach some kind of conclusion, in my own mind, as to whether Assange should indeed be sent to the US to stand trial for publishing stolen / leaked classified documents. On the one hand, he revealed war crimes, which is a good thing. On the other hand, I don't think he's a) a journalist or b) a neutral actor or c) a hero or whatever. I think he's sort of a stateless spy / non-governmental political element. And I can absolutely see the US's need to pursue people who publish their stolen classified documents.

That said, I think he's got 'right' on his side if they pursue him on the one case. And I also don't think he'd get a fair, transparent trial.

Let's just say I'm conflicted at the moment. And, to many of my other points, it would be a lot easier to support him if he wasn't clearly in league with state actors / leaks that have nothing to do with the so-called journalistic principles that are being sullied in his defense. He's no Mark Felt and Daniel Ellsberg, in that he didn't see a clear moral issue and act on it for the greater good. He's a hacker with the journalistic principles of TMZ. The fact that he exposed a war crime is being worn like a bulletproof vest.

[WOM]

I don't really see the flaw in justice here, unless you want cases found in absentia.

Well, the finding was that a trial in the US would be severely detrimental to his mental state, which was incidentally a mental state created by his 7 years in hiding to escape justice. So....guess it worked.

[MsD]

Didn't a UN torture expert state that he has actually been physically and psychologically tortured?

[WOM]

yes why should anyone care about war crimes? it's so old hat. Trump's pardoned them all anyway.

Don't read, consider or acknowledge anything else I post. Just keep coming back to the war crime. Ignore the necessity of pursuing and prosecuting people who steal / spy / engage in spy-like behaviours. Ignore everything else that might be nuanced or a gray area. Keep circling back to the war crime.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

Because governments need to be able to keep some things secret whether their contractors and employees believe otherwise.

Cue war crimes comment.....

Won't someone please think of the security apparatus of capitalist imperialism

fuck assange but fuck the US more.

[ad hoc]

I'm genuinely flabbergasted

[MsD]

I was in agreement about his hiding in the embassy etc., it's just that as time's gone by, and he's served time (be it for skipping bail, or down to his self-incarceration) plus had threats of extradition etc. it all *sort of* adds up to his having been punished for about a decade.
The purposes of prison are to protect society, punish the offender by depriving them of liberty, deliver retribution, deter the offender and others, and to rehabilitate. Which of these are achieved by keeping him in any longer?

[San Bernardhinault]

Revealing "state secrets" is one thing. Revealing crimes is another.

Governments have a legitimate need to keep some things secret. Those things do not include war crimes committed by that country's military and contractors.

[caja-dglh]

Well, the finding was that a trial in the US would be severely detrimental to his mental state, which was incidentally a mental state created by his 7 years in hiding to escape justice. So....guess it worked.

.

[WOM]

Yeah. I got clinical depression to get better college grades. Its a great scam.

Right, cuz that's what I said.

[caja-dglh]

Right, cuz that's what I said.

You are arguing a man manufactured a mental state to escape trial. Or that it shouldn't matter. Like it was a strategy.

[WOM]

Revealing "state secrets" is one thing. Revealing crimes is another.

Governments have a legitimate need to keep some things secret. Those things do not include war crimes committed by that country's military and contractors.

And the point I've made probably 6 times already is that his 'journalism' draws no distinction between the two, which makes him less easy to defend as a noble revealer of misdeeds.

I'll keep saying that any everyone will just keep ignoring it. He does good and he does not-good. This is not journalism. Publishing stolen material is not championing free speech.

[WOM]

You are arguing a man manufactured a mental state to escape trial. Or that it shouldn't matter. Like it was a strategy.

He created the conditions to avoid justice and he avoided justice. The same way he stayed in the embassy 7+ years to outlive the statute of limitations on the rape charge. Is NONE of this a strategy on his part?

[ad hoc]

I'm not ignoring your points. I'm just astonished that anyone is making them

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

I was in agreement about his hiding in the embassy etc., it's just that as time's gone by, and he's served time (be it for skipping bail, or down to his self-incarceration) plus had threats of extradition etc. it all *sort of* adds up to his having been punished for about a decade.
The purposes of prison are to protect society, punish the offender by depriving them of liberty, deliver retribution, deter the offender and others, and to rehabilitate. Which of these are achieved by keeping him in any longer?

no-one should be in prison, but someone who openly and freely collaborates with the far-right is fairly low down the list in terms of prison solidarity.

[WOM]

I'm not ignoring your points. I'm just astonished that anyone is making them

That's fine. As I replied to TonTon, it's more complicated for me and I've tried to explain why. If it's black and white for you, that's fine too.

[MsD]

no-one should be in prison, but someone who openly and freely collaborates with the far-right is fairly low down the list in terms of prison solidarity.

I'm not Team Julian, but how long would you have him in prison for, and to serve which of those objectives?

[Lang Spoon]

I can't see how or why the time of his self-incarceration should be included as time served, any more than for anyone else who has gone on the lam.

[ad hoc]

That's fine. As I replied to TonTon, it's more complicated for me and I've tried to explain why. If it's black and white for you, that's fine too.

It doesn't seem complicated it seems confused. That a man who is obnoxious should be prosecuted for publishing evidence of heinous crimes that the perpetrators would prefer were hushed up. Because he's obnoxious. (or at the very least that his character defects should count towards the decision whether to charge him)

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

I'm not Team Julian, but how long would you have him in prison for, and to serve which of those objectives?

Prison doesn't serve any of those objectives for anyone and as I said no-one should be in prison.