What's quite clear in all this, although made to disappear from consideration and appear as its opposite, is that Julian Assange was never trying to "escape Swedish justice"; he was, as his lawyer Jennifer Robinson says (in a Sky News interview with Sophy Ridge that I urge everyone to watch), "escaping American in justice." As Robinson points out, if Assange had gone to the Ecuadorian embassy to flee the Swedish charges, he would have left the Ecuadorian embassy when they were dropped. But, of course, it wasn't those charges he was trying to avoid. Assange's one consistent concern in all this, his reason for seeking and being granted political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy, was to avoid being extradited to the US, by Sweden or the UK. He had, and was right to have, a fear of that.
There is an obvious fault in the logic of people who continue to push the "Assange was fleeing sex-crime allegations" line, which they somehow never see. They say Assange is responsible for not confronting sex-crime allegations because he would not go to Sweden; they never say Swedish authorities are responsible for refusing to confront the sex-crime allegations on their own terms because they wouldn't give up on an irrelevant extradition to the US. The Swedes' first priority was not questioning Assange; it was getting him to Sweden with the option of onward extradition to the US. Assange was saying, "Let's get rid of an entirely irrelevant third-party that is preventing an investigation into the allegations on their own terms." The Swedes were saying: "No, we insist on preserving the prerogatives and interests of that irrelevant third-party as a condition of our investigation into these sex-crime allegations." The Swedes weren't taking that position for the sake of the women making the allegations. Who was centering and who was deprecating " the seriousness with which such allegations are viewed"?
Even under the worst interpretation for him, there is no conceivable logic here in which the Swedish prosecutors are not at least as responsible as Julian Assange for not doing what was necessary to deal with sexual-assault allegations. Nobody who did not demand that the Swedes abjure American extradition can claim that their primary concern was the sexual allegations. If you say he's bluffing, call it! Unless it's you who doesn't want to show your cards.
But in order to see that logic, you have to remain aware of the third party that's in the game, and the pushers of that narrative construct it in such a way to make that third party disappear. Again, the purpose of this discourse is to hide the role of the U.S. in order to protect it.
These facts also show how hypocritical it is for the British to be now promoting this line of diversion. Never mind how utterly phony it is for the government that refused Spain's extradition request for human-rights criminal Pinochet, despite its own highest court's ruling, to be now proclaiming its sacred duty to obey the Swedish and American extradition demands. As we've seen, it was the British who prevented the Swedes from interviewing Assange early on in this whole affair. They, too, were more concerned about something else then they were about seriously investigating sex-crimes allegations. They, too, were more concerned about someone else than they were about the women making the accusations. Now, rather than accounting for what they did in that respect over the past seven years, British imperial poodles are hypocritically posing as defenders of sex-crime investigation in order to continue diverting attention from the real dealer at the table.
Sweden isn't going to re-open the sex-crime investigation and take Julian Assange off their hands, and they know it. (Absent a post-Corbyn-victory Plan B above. And if the Swedes did, the investigation would be quickly concluded with no charges brought on the basis of the allegations, and the whole case would disappear into the ether as Assange was quickly bundled on the plane to America.) The issue isn't whether Julian Assange will be prosecuted for sex-crime allegations, for bail jumping, or for being an a**hole. The only issue is whether he will be extradited to the US and sent to prison for decades for publishing true facts about US crimes around the world.
End Game
That fight is now taking place, and will be decided, in London. It is imperative that everyone in the UK and US keep constant pressure on that one point. It is imperative that everyone refuse to be drawn into a discourse that changes the subject and diverts attention on to some other issue. The only purpose of such a discourse is to protect the US extradition project by disappearing it behind something else.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
3
3
2
