Wow. Just.......wow.
Hattip on this from nebris .
So....remember that story about the guy who founded Wikileaks who was brought up on a false rape charge?
Here's some follow-up on it:
This weekend, the controversies surrounding WikiLeaks took another strange turn. Late on Friday, the Swedish newspaper Expressen disclosed that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was the subject of an arrest warrant arising out of charges by two female witnesses that he had raped them within a three-day period. The late-hours special duty prosecutor, Maria Häljebo Kjellstrand, issued an arrest warrant for Assange, who quickly protested his innocence and charged that the claims against him were a “dirty trick.” Within twenty-four hours, Swedish prosecutors did a near complete about-face. After finishing a preliminary examination of the claims, chief prosecutor Eva Finné, to whom the case was handed off, concluded that the evidence did not justify an arrest warrant, and canceled the one issued by Ms. Kjellstrand. “I do not believe there is any reason to suspect that he has committed rape,” Ms. Finné told London’s Daily Telegraph. She noted that the file would remain open under a downgraded charge of sexuellt ofredande, or unwanted sexual contact, a far less serious offense. One of the women behind the charges gave an interview to the Swedish paper Aftonbladet on Sunday, backpedaling furiously. She stated that she was surprised to learn that the accusations were treated as a rape charge and denied that there had been any encounter with Assange involving violence or force. She suggested that the controversy had to do with Assange’s failure to use a condom during intercourse. In the meantime, Sweden’s Justice Ombudsman was demanding a formal investigation into how the accusations came to be sensationalized by the press on the basis of an improperly issued arrest warrant.
From my POV in a liberal democracy that's really waging a war for freedom to bring democracy to an area there should be no need for secrecy. This kind of dirty trickery belongs in a society like the old USSR where the truth being published about even the most noble things was up for question. From my POV I also see nothing worthy of praise in the reaction of the US Government to this. Even assuming no overt influence, if as the rest of the article in the link notes the government very much did push this along then it's fair to note that such behavior is shameful from any US government.
This is also why I feel the USA set itself up for a hard crash once it made rhetoric of Westernizing countries as the end goals of its wars. Your thoughts?
Rest of the article linked here: http://harpers.org/archive/2010/08/hbc-90007522
So....remember that story about the guy who founded Wikileaks who was brought up on a false rape charge?
Here's some follow-up on it:
This weekend, the controversies surrounding WikiLeaks took another strange turn. Late on Friday, the Swedish newspaper Expressen disclosed that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was the subject of an arrest warrant arising out of charges by two female witnesses that he had raped them within a three-day period. The late-hours special duty prosecutor, Maria Häljebo Kjellstrand, issued an arrest warrant for Assange, who quickly protested his innocence and charged that the claims against him were a “dirty trick.” Within twenty-four hours, Swedish prosecutors did a near complete about-face. After finishing a preliminary examination of the claims, chief prosecutor Eva Finné, to whom the case was handed off, concluded that the evidence did not justify an arrest warrant, and canceled the one issued by Ms. Kjellstrand. “I do not believe there is any reason to suspect that he has committed rape,” Ms. Finné told London’s Daily Telegraph. She noted that the file would remain open under a downgraded charge of sexuellt ofredande, or unwanted sexual contact, a far less serious offense. One of the women behind the charges gave an interview to the Swedish paper Aftonbladet on Sunday, backpedaling furiously. She stated that she was surprised to learn that the accusations were treated as a rape charge and denied that there had been any encounter with Assange involving violence or force. She suggested that the controversy had to do with Assange’s failure to use a condom during intercourse. In the meantime, Sweden’s Justice Ombudsman was demanding a formal investigation into how the accusations came to be sensationalized by the press on the basis of an improperly issued arrest warrant.
From my POV in a liberal democracy that's really waging a war for freedom to bring democracy to an area there should be no need for secrecy. This kind of dirty trickery belongs in a society like the old USSR where the truth being published about even the most noble things was up for question. From my POV I also see nothing worthy of praise in the reaction of the US Government to this. Even assuming no overt influence, if as the rest of the article in the link notes the government very much did push this along then it's fair to note that such behavior is shameful from any US government.
This is also why I feel the USA set itself up for a hard crash once it made rhetoric of Westernizing countries as the end goals of its wars. Your thoughts?
Rest of the article linked here: http://harpers.org/archive/2010/08/hbc-90007522