The United States said this week it has no role in a legal battle over the fate of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is now seeking political asylum at Ecuador’s embassy in London.
“To my knowledge, we are not involved in any of these discussions,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.
Assange believes the legal case against him alleging sexual abuse is a ploy to get him to the US to face punishment for publishing 250,000 classified diplomatic cables which were leaked to his organization.
Vaughan Smith, a supporter of Assange who gave him refuge in England while under house arrest said recently, “I genuinely believe that [Assange] fears for his life and he fears that if he goes to Sweden he’ll be sent to America.”
But the State Department insisted the United States was not part of the legal wrangling. “This is a UK-Ecuador-Sweden issue,” Nuland said. Washington’s opinion on the Assange case, she said, is that, “We want to see justice served, let’s leave it at that.”
But Assange and his organization committed no crime that any one can speak of with regard to publishing the leaked material. Major newspapers, for example, publish classified leaks all the time, and WikiLeaks is no different.
Army Pvt. Bradley Manning, who is accused of doing the leaking, is facing trial in the US and will face potentially harsh punishment if he loses his case.
The reality of Washington’s agenda to punish both Assange and Manning is to make an example out of them so as to disincentivize other potential leaks. But the WikiLeaks releases, while having done no actual harm to the US or any known individual, should be commended as a legitimate action against an overly secret, corrupt, and interventionist government.
What the US government repeatedly and carefully has not done is offer any kind of assurance that they won't have him rendered from Sweden as soon as he arrives there. If they did that, or the despicable Australian government asked for a guarantee that he will not be rendered to the US then all this brouhaha would be over.
Regards, Alex
The prosecution and conviction of Bradley Manning and Julian Assange could be the beginning of a long list of people imprisoned by ultra right democrats. As you pointed out so well in this fine article Julian Assange is guilty of nothing. Major newspapers regularly print classified material. Yet Assange faces the very real prospect of spending much of his life in US federal prison
. without benefit of a trial. Under the recently solidified Patriot Act there is no trial
And Assange may spend much of his time in solitary confinement as Bradley Manning has.
Fascism has taken a firm hold in the United States.
A goodness most terrible
Just think what our Empire would be like if whistleblowers were so prolific in government that no official dared do the slightest harm. Why, things like trading war materials for Middle-East oil would come to a screeching halt, our economy would go bankrupt and half of society would be out of work.
ummmm… half our society is out of work. You mean the other half I guess. Sadly this is what becomes of empires. We have turned our backs on honest trade and work and exist solely to kill and cheer the killing of various brown skinned peoples. That is all we have left.
Nothing screams admission like a US denial. War is peace, yes is no and all that jazz.
Well, if Vicki says she doesn't know about these scurrilous rumors, that's good enough for me and it should be good enough for you Mr. Glaser and you too Messrs Bell and Mauel. My govermint right or wrong!
Doug,
I don't know Doug if Vicki knows or not, but a government which has no qualms about murdering people as "collateral damage" (drones), runs torture and concentration camps (Gitmo, Bagram, Abu Ghraib and goodness knows where else), whose politicans are in the pocket of a lobbying group of a foreign country (Aipac), which fabricates evidence to justify invasions (wmd), which supports numerous violent and thuggish dictators and governments around the world (Pinochet, the Shah, Mubarak and now Tantawi, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Israel etc. etc. etc.), I'd be kind of worried about that government's credentials. In short, your "government" is wrong.
All this is a plot for Julian to be sent to Sweden when and if is done the Swedish government committed to give this man to US for prosecution. There is a cell made for him and the Swedish police would pick him up at Stockholm international airport Arlanda. The two women are spies and both have a shady background, one known well to be the card holding member of the Swedish Social Democrats whom had assignment to get Julian no matter what, because weakileaks knowing few things here and there about some of the Swedish Social Democrats and their involvement's in international affairs in Balkan and Libya. Two weeks ago Hillary Clinton was in Sweden meeting with the Swedish government making sure that if and when Assange is captured he would be sent to US for yet another questioning. It is a simple mathematics, the Swedish prosecutor known to be a rightwing prosecutor could have questioned Assange in London, Sweden prosecution office both in Stockholm and Gothenburg surely have a conference telephony and is only 2 hour flights to London from Stockholm and less then that from Gothenburg. The other women known to work for the Swedish “SAPO" the secret service. The most interesting part of it all is that Assange never charged with any crime, if that’s the case then why the Swedish prosecutor wanting him extradited to Sweden.