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Wikileaks Founder Advised To Avoid American Gov't
eldavojohn writes "Media darling Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, has been told by his lawyers to avoid the United States on the grounds that the US military would like to ask him a few questions about his source of the Collateral Murder video. Assange claims to be holding yet more video (of a US attack on a village that allegedly killed 140 civilians in May of 2009), as well as a quarter million sensitive cables relating to the current foreign war operations from the US State Department. Assange surfaced for the cameras in Brussels while speaking about the need for the freedom of information. Can he build a high enough profile to protect himself from danger?"
The Whistleblower is already in custody.
When it comes to pissing off the United States Government, well getting big and public doesn't always work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Madoff
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slobodan_Milosevic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Calley
Some were big, really big and one went public, and it didn't help them.
to ask him a few questions. At which time he might fall down a flight of stairs, trip and bump his head on the desk, or mysteriously disappear into a classified detention center. These things happen, yanno?
No yesterday, no tomorrow, and no today.
Our US thuggery is fairly predictable. I'm sure the CIA or equivalent has already been given hit orders. It will be made to look like an accident (small plane crash, car crash, mystery disease, etc). Such is necessary for plausible deniability.
Poor bastard, he will be missed.
these folks, random U.S. citizens, etc. why would they give pause for this guy?
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Can he build a high enough profile to protect himself from danger?
The guy has already been put into hiding. He'll either have an accident or be labeled a terrorist.
The main thing here is Julian has to worry about being tortured, not merely being killed. The government will find some punishment worse than death specially designed for Julian. And we know this government tortures people.
Those guys you list may or may not have been tortured. But when the government wants information out of you that is exactly the ticking time bomb type situation where you'd expect torture to be employed.
They want the guy making the leaks, because the people that were in charge aren't going to be prosecuted. Given the degree to which the White House was involved in the war crimes, it's an absolute embarrassment that not a single Bush administration official will be put on trial, let alone sent to prison for committing what are very clearly war crimes. I can sort of understand not wanting to convict CIA operatives, but at very least the people who ordered the criminal activities must be brought to justice or there's no saying how often it will happen in the future.
Granted a trial is no assurance of future compliance with international law, but it does give people that are considering violating the law something to think about.
O say, does that star-strangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the slaves, and the home of the cowards?
"And if they were actually knowingly murdering innocent people then they should be condemned. But the fact is that you dont have all the facts, and yet you want desperately to see them all hanged along with the entire US military establishments. You casually ignore the attrocities commited around the world, many of which we have military might in place to help prevent."
And many of which US military helped to create in the first place.
The U.S. has established a nice record of kidnapping people far from any battlefield, and shipping them off to Gitmo or Bagram Prison for 8 years, with a possible flyover in Syria for a few months of torture. The U.S. government has used sensory deprivation torture on and authorized assassinations for U.S. citizens.
If you're on the shit list of the U.S. military/intelligence establishment, you'd be a fool not to say far, far, far, far away as possible.
Wish I had some points to give you.
darjen lives in some fantasy world where being pacifist will always get the result you want. Not true. See ArcherB's list.
Unfortunately, there are remnants of past administrations that stick around for a long time. It's not like Obama could sign an OE that said "undo everything bad that's happened before." Change takes time, but we're an instant gratification society.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Yep. Obama has a horrendous record of keeping all the things you write about secret, which is why you're here writing about them, and not rotting in a gulag somewhere.