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Photo Reveals UK Plan: "Assange To Be Arrested Under All Circumstances"
politkal writes with the lead from a CNN story: "A policeman in London appears to have accidentally revealed an arrest plan for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, in what UK media have branded an embarrassing slip-up by London's Metropolitan Police. Clearly legible in a zoomed-in view of the clipboard, on a sheet of paper headed 'Restricted,' are the words: 'EQ Embassy brief — Summary of current position re. Assange. Action required — Assange to be arrested under all circumstances.' It goes on to suggest possible ways in which he could exit the building, such as in a diplomatic bag or vehicle."
Then watch the machinations.
Nope, not at all unusual for routine rape cases to involve threats of violating sovereignty. Nothing to see here folks.
You really are too stupid to be on internet:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/13/wikileaks-bradley-manning-defence-fund
WikiLeaks delivers contribution to Bradley Manning defence fund
Website honours pledge made last July to help pay legal fees of soldier accused of leaking US embassy cables
And given the current financial blockade against wikileaks they were lucky to get that out to the BM fund.
Bull. Everything is a state secret these days... what he has done is uncover the CRIMINAL ACTIVITY that the U.S. and its tight allies have been undertaking in other countries. 5% of the world does not control the other 95% - it likes to pretend, however.
...Steve
Nobody "accidentally" carries a restricted document outside on the front of a clipboard. Good for those coppers. They can't publically declare their support for Wikileaks and Assange's movement to Ecuador, but it's awesome of them to be helping out where they can.
Doesn't seem to include "assassination" in the list of options.
Sure, if you just wanted to be rid of Assange, that would be easy. Snipers. Bombs. Even just a guy with a pistol.
Problem is, you have him killed in any way that looks deliberate, and he becomes a martyr. I would hope that anyone in power is smart enough to know that, but I've also learned that you can never underestimate just how stupid people can be.
Now, you could try other ways. If he was just in hiding, not causing an international incident in an embassy, you could stage a "mugging gone wrong" or even just a car accident. "Problem" eliminated, but it doesn't look like you did it. If you were really good, try to make it look like it *was* deliberate, but a plan by Ecuador from the beginning to kill him for... some reason. Has to be a good reason, obviously, but it's plausible.
But even then, he dies "fighting". It's obvious that they want to first assassinate his *character*, not the person himself. Assange the man is a nobody, a mildly egotistic anti-authoritarian who started a website almost anyone could make. The problem is Assange the concept, Assange the idea. The lone rebel trying to show the evil empires for what they really are.
That's who they need to eliminate. They started with the rape allegations. Perhaps they simply embellished what actually happened. Perhaps they twisted what was said, what was done. Perhaps they made the whole thing up. They've blurred the charges so much that I can't even tell what he's actually charged with anymore. But they did a good job of it - Assange the Idea, at least to some, is gone, replaced with Assange the Man, a man who (at worst) is a hypocritical rapist scumbag, or (at best) a regular guy who made a few mistakes on par with public intoxication.
Their next step, obviously, is to milk the "common criminal" idea for all it's worth. I don't think they'll even extradite him to the US to face some vague treason charge - that brings back discussion of the leaks, the rebel and the big bad empire. No, they'll try to avoid even mentioning that. They'll hit him with rape charges to make him scum (rape is often considered the worst crime, worse even than murder). They'll probably bring in charges like shoplifting to make him seem petty, small. Then when they've finished their show trial, they'll lock him away and try to shut him up. Only once he's in prison will they think of trying to kill him, again while avoiding martyrizing him (if it were an American prison, just staging a prison fight and shanking would be enough).
To be fair it did look strange that immediately after the release of the documents he was accused of rape. I don't know what he did or didn't do but my credibility alarmed pinged.
Not really surprising, no. He was full of himself at that moment. High on media. I don't find it particularly surprising that he would think more of himself and less of others at that time.
The whole thing reminds me of Beria after Stalin. Before Stalin died, Beria was head of the NKVD, the precursor of the KGusetaBe. He was the front runner to take over. Then he got hit with over 150 allegations of rape, molestation, child molestation, the at the time version of sexual harrassment, and mopery and dopery. Beria died in prison 'attempting to escape', the date unknown.
Point is, nail somebody with a sex crime charge, nobody listens to him anymore. True or not, Assauge's credibilty went down the shitter when the charges were announced. He'll never get past them.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
I suspect with something like the 80+% turnout the USA had in the 1830s you would have a very different political landscape and the actual mechanism of collecting and tallying votes would be improved and run professionally on a state or federal level out of necessity.
Delivering poorly designed machines to untrained volunteers on the day (and the million other utterly stupid stuffups) is not acceptable - something that important should be planned properly so that the volunteers know how to run the polling station before the day. Having a wide variety of voting methods within even the same state for no actual practical reason (Florida 2000 was a joke) is a barrier to getting a clear result and bit of an insult to the voting public that have to wait insane amounts of time in some cases. If there was some sort of independent national body that ran elections then they would go as smoothly as those that US experts run on behalf of the UN in some countries. You already have the people that could do the job, but I suspect there's too much pork, and possibly outright corruption, bound up in all that money that goes into local voting systems, to do it without a lot of resistance even if it was done at a state instead of federal level.
That was pure speculation on Australian diplomats' part.
No. The Sydney Morning Herald states that: 'American responses to the embassy's representations have been withheld from release on the grounds that disclosure could "cause damage to the international relations of the Commonwealth".' So we know mainly Australia's side of the conversation, but that doesn't mean that they consist purely of speculation. And why does Fred Burton of Stratfor then claims that the U.S. has a sealed indictment against Julian Assange?
In Sweden, it is about setting an example. Sweden is the Saudi Arabia of feminism.
This is mainly calling people names.
Because it's Ecuador; who gives a shit? The UK has had this law for a while now, and all embassies in London should be quite aware of it. I sincerely doubt other nations will 'pull their business' if the UK storms the Ecuadorian embassy.
It's not about other nations pulling their business. It's about protecting UK embassies everywhere in the world. Who will for instance hinder the Russian police in the next Litvinenko-like case to storm the UK embassy in Moscow, citing the London precedent? That's the main reason why the UK retracted so fast from their bold statements - it would endanger the UK more than anyone else.