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Speculation: He were probably more worried about being convicted of rape. His narcissistic tendencies combined with PR makes being a "martyr" for many years better than spending a year or so in prison if convicted, add the ridiculous crap about Swedish collaboration with USA plus torture plus death penalty etc. which are obvious bullshit feeding his ego.

Speculation: you're a huge fan of Bari Weiss. You know, the NYT reporter who called Tulsi Gabbard an 'Assad toady' without being able to define or even spell the word.

Because the Swedes handing people over to the Americans to be tortured? Yeah, that actually happened. Sweden going to great lengths to get someone extradited to Sweden where they are promptly interrogated (for weeks in solitary confinement with no outside contact or even a lawyer) for an alleged crime in another country. Another country they were deported to, which mean that was the plan the entire time - that also happened. The UK police spending millions of pounds on a mere bail jumping case while pressuring Sweden not to drop charges against Assange - yes, that also happened.

Finally, Assange has long offered to return to Sweden voluntarily if the country promised they wouldn't hand Assange over to the United States. A promise that could easily be made, given the fact that Sweden is a signatory to the UN Convention Against Torture, which forbids extraditing prisoners to regimes that practice torture. Regimes like the United States.

So, in summary, Assange was just proven to be right all this time, and his haters should eat shit for throwing journalists under the bus to support criminal leaders and politicians.

He fought extradition all the way to the UK supreme court and lost at every stage.

For perfectly valid reasons, toolbag. Which is why Ecuador granted him aslylum in the first place, and why the UN declared his de facto detention unjust and arbitrary. And he only lost appeals in the UK because the country is as much a poodle of the United States today as it was during the the Bush Administration. But there's even precedent for the UK to block extradition for alleged hackers because the United States has a medieval prison system.

Look, this isn't hard. If this was ever really about alleged rape allegations, all Sweden had to do was promise not to hand Assange over to the United States. Even if you think Assange was lying about returning to Sweden upon such a promise, Ecuador would no longer have a reason to give him asylum, meaning Sweden would have him back one way or the other.

Heads you're wrong, tails you're wrong.

Amnesty International (AI) has morphed from an organization promoting human rights to an organzation promoting the policies of the alt-left.

AI now demands that all Western nations maintain "open borders", which is tantamount to national suicide. (There is more information about this issue.)

By contrast, Human Rights Watch (HRW) remains apolitical. HRW promotes only human rights.

I didn't write rape, I wrote "sexual assault." There's a reason for that.

Pedantic distinction without a difference.

And authorities only allow you to travel when they've absolutely cleared you from charges. Oh, wait... they do that all the time when people are still under investigation too.

Not if you believe there's merit to the allegations and you're dealing with a foreign national that has made it clear he's about to leave the country. Then they release you from custody but keep your passport.

to Sweden refusing to promise they wont hand Assange over to the United States

Why should they? Have they done that before? Do they normally offer guarantees to such treatment to people that they question?

Do you comment on many subjects at length where you have a comical level of ignorance, or just this one? In 2001, Sweden arrested a couple of men and handed them over to the CIA to be tortured. That by itself makes Assange's fear of extradition a matter of common sense, not paranoia. Since then, Obama launched more prosecutions of whisteblowers than all previous presidents combined, had one tortured for eighteen months before finding her guilty in a kangaroo court. The current Secretary of State is a big fan of torture, and the current head of the CIA is a torturer.

Hell, not only is Assange in the right to want extradition to the US blocked, Sweden is actually required to do so as a signatory to the UN Convention Against Torture, which forbids countries from extraditing to regimes that practice it. Regimes like the United States. But Sweden has ignored that treaty before - thus Assange's more than reasonable request that Sweden go on the record that this really is just about getting him to answer questions about an alleged rape.

Why is Sweden so much more convenient to pull Assange from than the United Kingdom -- where he was let out on bail from December 2011 to June 2012 -- which has a "special relationship" with the UK?

1) See above 2) see recent case where UK courts blocked the extradition of an accused hacker to the United States because of America's brutal prison system. The same prison system that saw Manning tortured and found guilty under unlawful command influence.

Can't even make up your own insult. Sad.

Obviously, it was throwing your BS back in your face. Obviously.

Oh, by the way, you skipped the whole "bail jumping" thing... probably because that act is indefensible.

You think UK police spend millions of pounds on every bail jumping case? Assange has offered to answer questions via video chat or in person if Swedish investigators come to the embassy in London. Sweden has done just that in dozens of other cases since Assange was granted asylum, so neither they nor you have any excuse here. And Assange has offered to give up his asylum and return to Sweden if they promise not to hand him over to the United States. Even if you think Assange is bluffing, Ecuador would no longer have a reason to grant him asylum.

So the allegations are so serious as to swear out an INTERPOL warrant and for the UK to spend millions of pounds keeping Assange under siege, yet Sweden has refused to make a simple promise that would have seen Assange back in their custody in a matter of days. Which tells anyone with two functioning brain cells that this isn't about an alleged rape and never was.

The announcement today means that Assange was completely 100% wrong.

Forget this week - the 2001 case of Sweden handing people over to the CIA to be tortured makes all of Assange's fears entirely reasonable. Anyone who claims otherwise is either woefully ignorant of relevant events or is purposely turning their brain off, and accept more BS from the same sort of people that lied you into Iraq. That one example of shenanigans is more than enough, but there are plenty more where that came from. And each one doubles the willful ignorance involved, like that old story about a kid getting a grain of rice from a greedy king, except each day that grain of rice would double:

• There's the fact that Assange was questioned and cleared to leave Sweden by investigators, only for another, more politically motivated prosecutor to step in. And get an INTERPOL warrant. For a couple of women who asked for an STD test.

  There's the fact that Sweden has refused for years to either interview Assange remotely, or to send investigators to interview him in London - as they've done dozens of other times since Assange took refuge in the embassy.

  There's the fact that Sweden has refused Assange's offer to return to Sweden if they promise not to hand him over to the United States. A promise that would be easy to make, given America's fondness for torture. Speaking off...

  There's the fact that Obama had Chelsea Manning tortured with a year and a half of solitary confinement.

  There's the fact that the UK has spent millions of pounds to watch one person for...jumping bail. And pressured Sweden to keep up the investigation instead of dropping it.

  Then there's the fact that Sweden went to great lengths to nab a founder of the Pirate Bay from a non-extradition country - and as soon as he was on Swedish soil, interrogated him at length without a lawyer for an alleged crime in another country. Which meant it was their plan to do so all along. And as soon as his Swedish sentence was up, deported him to said other country (Denmark).

And that's off the top of my head, there's probably some more I'm forgetting. But you're already at an entire kingdom's worth of willful dumbfuckery, based facts that have been readily available for years.

Why do people think it would be easier to extradite from Sweden than from the UK?

What would be the pretext in the UK? Assange isn't accused of committing any crimes there and thus they would have no reason to detain or question him. Even now, as the Trump DOJ is proving all of Assange's fears to be completely rational and his haters to be assholes, a foriegn state doing a snatch-and-grab on the CIA's say so in broad daylight would force people to pay attention. And the UK has denied extradition to the USA based on how brutally America treats it's prisoners. Prisoners like Chelsea Manning, who was tortured with solitary confinement for a year and a half.

As opposed to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning on an alleged crime (even though he was questioned and given permission to leave by a prosecutor) and that government has had no problems giving people to the US to be tortured.

Before you rush off to Tulsa for $10k and a little housing subsidy:

https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/...

Seriously. There is the evil duo of Crypto-conservatism again.

States so incompetent that they legislate themselves into ideological bankruptcy, but they have time to sneak in an important bill to regulate people who don't stick their genitals in the ideologically allowed place.

This pretty much tell us what living there would be like. Most of the country could care less about who puts what thing where, but the states who do are more concerned about it than they are about fiscal responsibility.

Before you rush off to Tulsa for $10k and a little housing subsidy:

https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/...

Back to the normal business of oppressing women and minorities and attempting to islamise the west.

What do you mean, what do I mean. The UK just blocked extradition of a suspect based on how the US treats suspects and prisoners - whereas Sweden directly handed asylum seekers over to the CIA to be tortured in 2001. In 2013 Sweden went to great lengths to arrest a founder of the Pirate Bay in a non extradition country, and upon his arrival in Sweden, immediately interrogated him for weeks without a lawyer or any outside contact for an unrelated crime in an unrelated country - and then later deported him to said country.

If you're really hung up on citizenship, just refer to the U.N. Convention Against Torture, which forbids transporting prisoners to where they may be tortured. Sweden and the UK are both signatories, as is the United States to this treaty - one it has been in flagrant violation of ever since Bush's first year in office. Bush of course had a worldwide kidnapping and torture program. Obama also violated the treaty when he refused to prosecute those who committed torture, and tortured Chelsea Manning with eighteen months of solitary confinement and then pronounced guilty in a textbook case of unlawful command influence. The current Secretary of State is a big fan of torture, and the head of the CIA is a torturer.

So both the immediate parties involved would have to break a law they agreed to if Assange ends up in US custody. But it wouldn't be the first time they have done so - Sweden had been a signatory to the convention for over 15 years when it handed over Mohammed al-Zari and Ahmed Agiza to the CIA at an airport. Also note that the CYA move Sweden tried by getting "assurances" from Egypt that they wouldn't torture the men, but that was found insufficient by the UN Human Rights Committee.

Yeah I know. All our legal systems let fugitives decide the terms of their interview.

When your "legal system" has a penchant for kidnapping, murder and torture? That's exactly what you get to do. This line of CIA apologia is also rendered mute by the fact that Sweden has interviewed dozens of suspects abroad since 2010. Moreso by the additional fact that Assange has offered to return to Sweden if Sweden promises not to hand him over to US custody. Even if you are an Assange hater and think that offer is a bluff, if Sweden were to take it up, Ecuador would no longer have a reason to offer Assange asylum.

Sweden could easily make this be about rape charges if its only about rape charges, and could have done so years ago. They've chosen not to. Which means this isn't about an alleged rape and never has been.

Sweden couldn't legally do that: if they extradite him from the UK via a European Arrest Warrant, they can't then extradite him to anywhere without applying to the High Court in London.

Sweden has handed people over to the CIA who were promptly tortured. Sweden has also gone to great lengths to extradite people from non-extradition counties, interrogated them for weeks in solitary confinement without a lawyer, and then deported them to other countries to face unrelated charges.

It was good enough for our Ancestors.
These people aren't dragging their kids away from a loving nanny and a summer at the pool with afew hours of PBS kids.

You're allowed to cream over that buffoon all you want, but please let's stop pretending that there are "facts" supporting your worshipping.

Says the guy tossing the CIA's salad:

1) The women went to authorities not with rape accusations but to ask for an STD test
2) The state investigated the situation and cleared Assange to leave the country
3) Another, politically connected prosecutor steps in and starts throwing around the "R" word
4) Assange agrees to return to Sweden but wants a promise he wont be handed over to the United States, as Sweden has kidnapped people to be tortured by the CIA. Sweden continues to refuse that request to this day.

#4 alone means you and every other Assange hater is engaging in willful dumbfuckery. If this is really about a rape allegation and not a pretext to get Assange in U.S. custody, then let it be about rape allegations, for which Sweden's statute of limitations doesn't run out until 2020. And this was all old news five years ago - but now we can also add:

5) The UK government pressured Sweden to keep up the investigation and continues to spend large amounts of money on a police presence for what is now a bail jumping case
6) The case of Gottfrid Svartholm is the nail in your gaslighting coffin. Sweden goes to great lengths to have a Pirate Bay founder arrested in a non-extradition country on copyright charges. But as soon as he arrives in Sweden he is interrogated for weeks, in solitary confinement, without a lawyer or outside contact for an alleged crime in another country. And later on he is deported to said country where he is imprisoned.

Back to #4. Even if you think Assange is full of shit on returning to Sweden voluntarily if they give him a no-extradition promise, the threat of that possibility is what got Assange asylum from Ecuador. You take that threat off the table, Ecuador no longer has a reason to continue that asylum. Sweden could have taken care of this with the stroke of a pen waaay back in 2011, saving UK police millions of pounds in the process - also old news for anyone who doesn't have a hole in their heads. So are you gonna pull yours out now, or go on buying ranch dressing by the barrel?

Maybe he didn't know at the time of Sweden's penchant for kidnapping people for the CIA's benefit. Or that while Sweden has a reputation for being all socialisticy on their health care and education systems, their criminal justice system is positively medieval in how suspects can be held in solitary confinement for questioning, with no outside contact.

Cool story, bro. But no. Gottfrid was charged and jailed in Sweden for copyright infringement, and was investigated for hacking and fraud. He was then deported to Denmark where he was prosecuted and convicted for hacking.

So you're just going to ignore the part where he was imprisoned for weeks, held incommunicado with no right to outside contact of any kind (including a lawyer as he wasn't charged) and interrogated on this other alleged crime before being sent to prison for the previous copyright charge.

Your willful dumbfuckery is noted.

Sweden's extradition treaty specifically forbids extradition for "political crimes", and the only thing which the US has accused him of is expressly political. Ergo there's no good reason to believe that Sweden would extradite him.

Assange is wanted for questioning on alleged hacking cases like the DNC server and Podesta's email. What was Gottfrid Svartholm deported to Denmark for? Alleged hacking. And which part of Sweden's extradition treaty allowed them to hand people over to the CIA for immediate torture?

Either way, you're basically suggesting that both Sweden and the USA need to change their laws in order to accommodate poor little Julian, which is pretty damn funny.

What laws were changed for Sweden to interview 44 suspects in the UK since 2010 without having them extradited first? Assange has offered to do just such an interview in the embassy, or to even return to Sweden if given a no-extradition promise. Even if you think Assange is bluffing, Ecuador would no longer have a reason to grant him asylum, so either way you'd want Sweden to go ahead and make such a guarantee to get his over with. Thus, all the willful dumbfuckery from concern trolls like yourself to hand waive away these inconvenient facts.

Dumb.

Fuck.

Er.

Eee.

The rape allegation is nothing but a pretext to get him into custody so he may be interrogated by or outright handed over to the United States. If it wasn't, the government of Sweden would have taken up Assange years ago on his offers to be interviewed by investigators remotely or in person at the embassy. Or to return to Sweden outright if they promised not to hand him over to U.S. custody.

The response to this inconvenient fact is generally a pithy "since when do wanted suspects get to negotiate terms". Well, since cops negotiate with suspects all the time. Lets say Dallas cops had Micah Xavier Johnson on the phone and were trying to get him to surrender. They would of course say no to crazy demands like a million dollars and a getaway car. But if Johnson had offered to give himself up on the condition that he not be flown to Guantanamo to be tortured, the SWAT commander would roll his eyes and say "sure, we wont fly you to Cuba, so drop your guns and walk out with your hands up".

Assange's fear of being handed over to the U.S. isn't remotely crazy, though, since Sweden handed people over to the CIA who were then tortured and Obama had Manning tortured with months of solitary confinement. So, yeah, a suspect gets to negotiate terms when dealing with entities known for kidnapping and torture, two things the people screaming about alleged rape DGAF about.

The response to that is a pithy "well Assange offered to give himself up if Obama commuted Manning's sentence so he's bluffing". EXCEPT - the very credible threats of persecution and torture is why Ecuador granted Assange asylum in the first place. If Sweden were to take extradition and interrogation by the U.S. off the table, the reason for that asylum disappears. So if this is really about alleged rape, let it be about the alleged rape and nothing else. Either Sweden takes Assange up on his offer because the threat is real, or Sweden takes Assange up on his offer so Ecuador will show him the door.

"their persons and papers" .... it still takes a warrant to pull the NSA data. Of course, you don't want to believe that.

If the NSA has copies of the data, then it has already be seized whether it was searched or not.

The DoJ's position is that data is not searched until a human looks at it so automated searches are constitutional. Fuck them.

NSA data is being used for law enforcement inside the US and being hidden from court review by parallel construction:

https://www.hrw.org/report/201...

There is no legislative, executive, or judicial remedy for this ubiquitous surveillance. None of the three branches of government can be trusted to keep their word. That leaves encrypting absolutely everything whether it denies lawful access or not.

And isn't it interesting how the White House and US media have so little to say about violent political repression in Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates (Look them up here: https://www.hrw.org/ ), or the US tactical support for the Saudi bombing campaigns that target civilians (a war crime) in Yemen?

EU is just as capable as Turkey at controlling their border so if Turkey tried EU would just close the border to Turkey and then Turkey is fucked.

EU countries all signed up to the ECHR which says

1) They can't just shoot migrants arriving

2) They're not allowed to return them because that would violate the principle of 'non-refoulement'

https://eulawanalysis.blogspot...

Basically, the dogmatic point of departure is simple: the EU principle of non-refoulement is anchored in Article 19(2) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU, which contains a prohibition to remove, expel or extradite any person to a State where there is a serious risk that he or she would be subjected to the death penalty, torture or other inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The Charter should govern the uniform interpretation of the principle of non-refoulement in Union law, both in the Treaties and in secondary legislation (like the Returns Directive and the Qualification Directive). As the prohibition of refoulement is absolute in the ECHR, it should universally be interpreted to be absolute regardless of the legal context of EU law in which it appears. Article 19(2) of the Charter corresponds to Article 3 ECHR, and so must be interpreted the same way (Article 52(3) of the Charter). See the ECtHR ruling in Chahal, and more case law in Kees Wouters, International Legal Standards for the Protection from Refoulement, Intersentia, 2009, p. 307 - 314. The Court of Justice has recognized the absolute nature of the rule in its judgment in Aranyosi (paras 85-87).

https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/eu-...

3) Inside the EU the migrants can claim asylum and even if they are refused they're unlikely to be deported

https://www.express.co.uk/news...

4) The numbers of asylum seekers who are likely to find work is minimal. Of the million plus migrants who arrived in 2016 only 54 found a job

http://www.breitbart.com/londo...

In a survey by the Frankfurter Allgemeiner Zeitung, however, most of the top 30 companies on the German stock exchange (DAX) said they were unable to employ any of the new arrivals. The companies said migrants lacked the necessary qualifications needed to fill any of their roles.

Although the companies surveyed employ four million workers, FAZ reported that between them, they had only hired 54 migrants.

Fifty of these are employed by the German post office, and the vast majority of top German companies hired none at all. Software giant SAP reported having two migrants working for them, and pharmaceutical manufacturer Merck also said they had hired two.

I.e. if Turkey or Libya open the floodgates then there's nothing the EU can do legally to stop large numbers of people being dependent on benefits in the EU indefinitely.

Did Saddam commit a genocide? I think there's a difference between massacres and genocide. If the beef is he deliberately killed thousands of civilian Kurds from the air, the US just did something not too dissimilar in Mossul and Raqqa. The cities were destroyed WW2 style pretty much killing thousands...

I was of course referencing the A-Anfal campaign, your wiki primer is here. It's documented more thoroughly and extensively at Human Rights Watch here.

Saddam's campaign saw the destruction of 90% of Kurdish villages. The use of chemical weapons on those villages. A death toll estimated between 100 and 200 thousand. Concentration camps were setup. Fighting age males were sorted and shipped out from the camps on buses like cattle to be shot and buried in mass graves by bulldozers. The women in the camps were systematically raped, not as punishment or intimidation but to impregnate Kurdish women with half Arab children in an effort to breed the Kurds out of existence in one swing as the other Kurdish males of 'fighting' age were being buried in the desert.

Yeah, go ahead and put a question mark around whether all that really classifies as 'genocide' or not.

the corruption and incompetence levels of American law enforcement have been staggering.

For the drug war, there should be a distinction between federal and state enforcement because that changes who the "target" of enforcement is. That also doesn't address the goal of the drug war and it's efficacy as you are alluding to.

Finally, your argument that black markets create lower prices is anti-intuitive. Normally black markets raise the cost of goods or services because the financial model has to include the risk of being in the business.

If a drug becomes expensive the market will create alternatives. or an example take Krokodil(nasty stuff btw)
Recently because of state initiatives, the black market is competing with legal markets and the black market is cheaper because less regulation (go figure).

There is some truth to that but you must also consider the lack of regulation. For example, in high school it was easier to get any illegal drug than it was to get alcohol because a drug dealer doesn't care who they sell to compared to a store owner that could lose everything. Or using dangerous and cheaper substances to "dilute" the drug to make more money.

Is the rise in right wing politics in Europe enough for you? From, Brexit, to Le Pen to the recent German elections. Europe bans hate speech yet still having problems with hate crimes https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/...
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/...

You don't have a sense of humor anymore? People aren't supposed to be able to laugh?

As usual, when right wingers criticize the left, they describe themselves.

Right winger vs black lives matter
Trump voter vs man of Indian descent.
Effects of Christians insisting Muslims are dangerous

Syrian military jets attacked the site, according to every report - even the Russians agree with that. There's documented evidence that Syria has been carrying out chemical attacks repeatedly for years. And attempts to place blame on the rebels are implausible at best, described as "laughable" by experts from the US, Britain, Israel, Turkey, and others.

There's clear evidence of Assad using gas attacks for years, starting with the 2013 attack, and continuing in May 2014, in April 2015, in June 2015, in September 2016, and even more recently in November and December 2016.

This is simply the latest in a string of chemical attacks that Assad clearly feels he can use with impunity.

There's clear evidence of Assad using gas attacks for years, starting with the 2013 attack, and continuing in May 2014, in April 2015, in June 2015, in September 2016, and even more recently in November and December 2016.

This is simply the latest in a string of chemical attacks that Assad clearly feels he can use with impunity.

There's clear evidence of Assad using gas attacks for years, starting with the 2013 attack, and continuing in May 2014, in April 2015, in June 2015, in September 2016, and even more recently in November and December 2016.

This is simply the latest in a string of chemical attacks that Assad clearly feels he can use with impunity.

There's clear evidence of Assad using gas attacks for years, starting with the 2013 attack, and continuing in May 2014, in April 2015, in June 2015, in September 2016, and even more recently in November and December 2016.

This is simply the latest in a string of chemical attacks that Assad clearly feels he can use with impunity.

There's clear evidence of Assad using gas attacks for years, starting with the 2013 attack, and continuing in May 2014, in April 2015, in June 2015, in September 2016, and even more recently in November and December 2016.

This is simply the latest in a string of chemical attacks that Assad clearly feels he can use with impunity.

But if the owner is present during the raid, would he have to mention presence of the tripwire, or keeping the mouth shut is ok?

No, I don't think, there is a legal requirement to actively cooperate with police, however lawful their purpose. Even if they flat-out ask him about it, he can remain silent — leaving them to draw their own conclusions from it. Even if his silence is later determined to have been contemptuous, locking him up for such contempt will be pointless because the disks will already have been destroyed.

You mean as means of torture to make sure there indeed are no backups somewhere

Yes, as torture — both as punishment as well as to extract evidence. The evidence does not need to be backup — the victim may incriminate himself to stop being daily raped... I'm not at all certain, such things are actually in common practice — but we've all heard horror stories...

he's a jackass who's just claiming the US is going to extradite him to avoid facing the charges and to keep himself in the limelight

You were doing fine with the prebutting of criticism until you got to echoing the ratfucking of Assange. No one is going to choose near-solitary confinement for years on end for shits and giggles and "attention". If the rape allegations weren't a mere pretext for Sweden to hand him over to U.S. custody, why haven't Swedish officials interviewed him remotely or in the embassy, as he has offered to do. Why hasn't the Swedish government promised not to extradite Assange if he voluntarily returns to Sweden - as he has also offered to do.

Because there is only one possible answer to that - the allegations are a mere pretext to hand him over to U.S. custody, or at least be extensively interrogated by U.S. authorities in Sweden. It's happened before. The country may be known for its socialisticy health care and education system, but it's positively medieval its criminal justice system, allowing suspects to be held and interrogated with no lawyers or outside contact for extended periods of time.

All of this was known years ago, so what gives?

Most people who are slandered as "Anti-Israel" aren't against Israel or Jews. They are against things like Israel constantly flouting its borders as defined by the UN resolution that created it, and the amended resolution that expanded them. To this day Israel is pushing active settlement programs that violate those borders. They also dislike things Israel's violations of wartime conventions (using white phosphorous, and further, doing so in civilian heavy populations). They are even more so against any valid criticism of the Israeli government being labelled as "anti-semitic". It is absolutely feasible for someone to have no issue with the Jewish people, but despise the behavior of Israel. There is a book I highly recommend reading called "Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semintism and the Misuse of History". It is written by a Jewish Israeli. You are trying to grossly simplify the issue to push your perspective. Violating international boundaries and wartime conventions pisses people off.

You mean he really wants to avoid being handed right over the U.S. government, that tortured Manning with more than a year in solitary confinement, by the Swedes. Because that's exactly what Sweden has done in the past. Assange has also offered to be interviewed by Swedish prosecutors if they came to the Ecuador embassy, or to return to Sweden if the government promises not to hand him over to the United States. Maybe he would find a reason not to fulfill those promises - but it would be very easy for Sweden to call his bluff.

They haven't called his bluff. Which tells any person with two functioning neurons that it's not about rape allegations and never has been.

Assange is very far from a "perfect record for truth telling".

Then you'll have no problem listing some examples of fraudulent documents released through Wikileaks, right?

And the only country anyone has asked him to surrender for is Sweden. Is that "the torture country" in your book?

Are you ignorant of the fact that Sweden was a willing tool of Bush's extraordinary kidnapping program, handing people over to United States custody that were promptly tortured?

There is no such thing as a "private" extradition request, because by definition they have to be presented in a foreign court

Dude. The time to put down the shovel was three posts ago. This is the same government that has had an "extraordinary rendition" practice under both Democratic and Republican presidents. You know, kidnapping people from across the world and taking them to black sites, sometimes to be tortured directly by the CIA, sometimes to friendly nations like Syria - until they are on our shit list.

So for a directly related example, where was the public extradition request for al-Zari and Agiza? Feel free to put down the shovel at any time.

https://www.hrw.org/world-repo...

Soviet Famine killed millions
Chinese famine killed millions
Venezuela's communist system is failing them now just like the USSR's system went belly up.
Communist Vietnam has almost no human rights

I could go on, but I think this is sufficient to disprove your bullshit.

No, of course not.

Then your argument is invalid — by your own admission and on its own merit.

Your method has already been tried and it resulted in a massive disaster

Non sequitur. If freedom of speech is what gave us Hitler's genocide, you may as well blame mothers giving birth — Hitler was born, was not he?

I'm actually a strong proponent of free speech.

Yeah, except in Europe, right? Let's go back to the question I asked earlier: if Germany not having true freedom of speech is justified by Hitler, what other freedoms and liberties would you excuse other countries not offering their citizens and visitors by something, that happened to them in the past? Is it Ok for Thailand or Venezuela to prosecute people for "insulting" the head of State, while you continue denouncing Trump (and I don't expect you to stop, when he actually takes office)?

Incredibly well it would seem:

https://ukdefencejournal.org.u...

The only dissenting voice seems to be some guy from a site called Airwars whose evidence to the contrary is merely "I don't believe them because past wars have had more casualties!". That theory is nonsense of course, because that's the whole point - this isn't a past war, this is a war learning from the mistakes both in terms of missile technology and rules of engagement of past wars. Given the low destructive nature of Brimstone, which is why it's great at avoiding collateral damage in the first place, it should be trivial to find remnants of Brimstone missiles at the site of civilian casualties, but even ISIS with their love of propaganda seem to have been entirely unable to do so.

Of course, you might argue that no missile would leave remnants, but we know that's bullshit because every other time this happens it's been trivial to find remnants, this is from a US predator airstrike with a hellfire for example (which has a larger warhead than Brimstone so would be expected to leave even less evidence behind) in Yemen:

https://www.hrw.org/sites/defa...

I'm not saying I specifically believe the MOD's claim of no casualties, but given the lack of evidence of any casualties caused by RAF Brimstone strikes it seems pretty clear that the number is incredibly low, and yes Mr Airwars, unprecedented in the history of warfare - that's how progress works, things improve.

2000 liters/day is a lot. About how much a U.S. family of 4 uses. You can make do with a lot less. India is around 130 liters/person-day. So I suspect this is more a one per 100-300 people concept, meant to provide potable water (drinking and cooking) so existing water sources can be used for things like bathing and laundry. That would help avoid things like the arsenic poisoning fiasco caused by relief agencies drilling fresh water wells in Bangladesh.

Without warning, a third soldier emerged from inside the tank and started shooting at the three girls and then also at their grandmother.

This may or may not have been a horrible war crime, but it was not an Act of Terror. There is a fairly clear definition: civilians must be the targets (not bystanders) of calculated (not accidental or mistaken) violence for the purpose of intimidation or coercion or instilling fear.

The IDF refused to let an ambulance bring them to the hospital

Hamas has uses ambulances to transport troops and ammunition. They also use children for suicide attacks — a common practice by Islamists in Palestine and world-wide. Children are also used as human shields — because it works on impressionable useful idiots like yourself. Whether the women, who stepped out, were innocent, or were about to throw a tank-disabling bomb under the tracks, may not have been obvious.

But, again whether the IDF soldier had justifiable suspicions in his shooting of the family, or committed a war crime, it was not an act of terror.

And I did ask for three examples — certainly, a country labeled "terrorist" by detractors would have at least three acts of terror to its name...

Hamas averages dozens of such acts every year — their whole strategy is based on targeting Israeli civilians, because they are impotent at targeting IDF. And yet, you'd like to pretend, Israel is "worse" or "just as bad". Fail.

Considering the huge difference in weapons and armour on both sides, it's safe to assume that when 10 people get injured on both sides, injuries aren't really of the same scale.
It's like when during a peaceful protest, 50 people get injured by the police with flashballs, tasers and batons, police force has to count every single scratch on their boots and helmets as an injury to make it look a bit more symmetrical.
Does this look symmetrical to you : https://www.hrw.org/world-repo... ?

But that doesn't stop Sweden from 'losing' prisoners at the airport just about where the CIA goons with a private jet are waiting to ship the said prisoners to Egypt for some rubber hose cryptanalysis.

Why was this modded down?

It seems like a fair description of an actual event.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
https://www.hrw.org/news/2006/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Sweden doesn't have any laws to allow them to lend someone to another country. That goes against both Swedish law and EU law.

Swedish law doesn't allow extraordinary rendition, but that doesn't mean it never happens. Sweden has cooperated with CIA kidnapping on at least one occasion.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2006/...

It helps that we don't rely on Saudi oil as much as we used to. Fracking is kinda filthy, but for the first time in my lifetime we don't need to be muscled around by the Saudis to keep our nation moving. And they feel the hurt - to raise cash, they've announced they may offer shares of their state-owned oil company to the pubic. And that's not the worst... the whole region is literally heating up, to the point it may become uninhabitable in 80 or 90 years.

It may not hurt now to re-think who's side we have to be on in the weird cat-fight between the Saudis and Iran that serves to fuck up the entire region. The way it used to be, we'd bend-over backward for the Saudis, even in spite of their frequent violations of human rights (like this one)... all because we needed a friend in the region with oil. Now, maybe not so much. Hell, Iran is actually trying to make nice with us. Changing times, maybe.

What? You mean the crew lying to their chain of command isn't enough proof that they knew they were violating their own rules of engagement? You think you know something they didn't?

OK, here's the rule then. Specifically 1.c.

This wasn't a big surprise to the troops in conflict as the very first Geneva convention stated that. The US abides by that convention.

What an extra-ordinary person then Assange person is, above laws and able through divine right to dictate to nations the terms under blah blah blah blah

Assange was offered asylum for a reason, and that's the penchant for Sweden to hand people - innocent people - over to the United States to be tortured. That happened. Then there was the two years of torture - and yes, solitary confinement is torture - inflicted on Bradley Manning.

We must all abandon all notions of democracy and justice and bend the knee to his holiness...

All the pompous asshattery in the world doesn't deflect from the elephant in the room: the refusal of Swedish authorities to make this about rape, if it is in fact about rape.

Hell, take Assange and the CIA out of it and switch the subject to the police standoff of your choice. Suspect offers to give himself up if the cops promise not to shoot him in the back or beat him to death after he's handcuffed - things other cops have done to other suspects. What police lieutenant isn't going to roll his eyes and say:

"Fine. We wont beat or shoot you to death. Now go ahead and turn yourself in."

I know that in general people can flee from the USA if they so choose (when not detained). I do know there is a difference in degree between what the Germans did and what the US is doing now, as many Muslims and many blacks and latins are doing fine even with the indefinite detentions, but I can also see that they are not completely different. It's some people losing their lives and their freedom way more often than other people, because of their races/religions. It is worth mentioning that the prison system is very lucrative, both for the work done in prisons and for the subsidies that they get for keeping people in prison.

I answered the other post mentioning facts and suggesting important reads. "Hate mongering" is a very common expression used to dismiss what other people are saying, but it should be used against angrier posts, not concern about serious issues and others knowledge.

Sweden can not be trusted, and sadly the law just doesn't come into it:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2006/...

1) Kuwait has introduced a law mandating DNA testing for everyone, already. https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/... - it's required in order to get a government ID, and a government ID is required to live, basically. 2) In America, at least, the real problem with this code (and likely the real use case) is not blocking access to a website as an expression of "racism" (whatever that even means in this context), it would be using that profile to serve up content _selectively_. It's already been shown that Google gives different results to searches that include "black" names vs "white" ones: http://thevisualcommunicationg... - they could with perfect ease include this DNA data as an input signal to ad selection also. Searching for auto insurance? Your color blindness will cause the search to show worse deals. It's axiomatic that you should never, ever make unchangeable information with abuse potential of this sort accessible to anyone, if it can possibly be prevented.