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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   25443 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 8, 2024

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The guardian on Assange and Biden considering to drop the charges.

Should Biden decide to drop the Assange prosecution it would bring him into line with the previous Democratic administration of Barack Obama. It held back from charging the WikiLeaks founder for fear of infringing freedom of the press rights under the first amendment.

The 18 charges against him were ultimately brought under the presidency of Donald Trump.

To my surprise, this is actually a take echoed by Glenn Greenwood:

So Obama ended eight years in office without indicting Assange or WikiLeaks. Everything regarding Assange’s possible indictment changed only at the start of the Trump administration. Beginning in early 2017, the most reactionary Trump officials were determined to do what the Obama DOJ refused to do: indict Assange in connection with publication of the Manning documents.

The facts go like this:

  • In 2010, Assange fled from Sweden to the UK because he was concerned that his prosecution for some alleged sex crimes was a pretext for extraditing him to the US.
  • In 2012 he took asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in the UK, citing the same concerns.
  • In May 2017 the Swedish prosecutors dropped their charges
  • In April 2017 the Trump DOJ announced that they wanted to prosecute Assange
  • In 2019 he was arrested in the embassy and has been mostly greenlighted for extradition to the US by now.

The Guardian/Greenwood narrative would have to go like this:

  • When Assange stated that he was afraid that Sweden would extradite him to the US in 2010, he was a poor delusional paranoid, because the Obama DOJ valued freedom of the press and all that. None of the prosecution he faced until 2017 was anything different than what any random citizen of Australia accused of similar crimes would have faced.
  • When the evil Trump DOJ took over, they promptly decided to prosecute Assange, suddenly turning his paranoid delusions into reality and putting pressure on the UK to extradite him for his Wikileaks work.
  • When Joe Biden took over, he just forgot to stop his DOJ from further prosecuting Assange.

My narrative would go something like this:

  • Assange was right that the US was out to get since 2010. The sex crime allegations were played up for political reasons. Sweden would have totally extradited him to the US. The DOJ simply kept their mouths shut because there was no advantage for them to admit they intended to prosecute him while he was out of their reach, and playing the freedom of the press champion made Assange look like a paranoid fool.
  • When the Swedes finally dropped their charges, Assange was still wanted in the UK for skipping bail. For some reason (probably something internal, possibly related to the administration change) the US decided to finally put their cards on the table instead of waiting until he was in UK custody.
  • After Biden took over in 2021 he did not drop the prosecution because getting hold of Assange had been a goal of the US (especially the intelligence community) since 2010, not a partisan Trump pet project.

I took Greenwald's comment mostly as a reminder that it was Trump admin who did prosecute Assange, since Greenwald has a lot of followers/fans who love Trump and also love Assange, and since Trump fans have often demonstrated a particularly remarkable talent for ignoring actual stuff that Trump does/did (which isn't that different from your standard "swampy" Republican) and supporting Trump on the basis of some fantasy version of Trump in their heads.

It is more that one man can not be an administration, even if the appeal of Trumpism is the fantasy of change.

For all the promise of Trump changing things, at the end of the day his administration will have plenty of typical republicans. But Trump at least represents a promise. And there is some difference.

You also ought to give Trump credit for being an obstacle to a much more neocon, interventionist, deep state aligned republican administration. And you would be getting a different administration if people more like Pompeo, Mike Pense, etc, were the president.

I do agree with another poster that people should put more pressure on politicians like Trump who they think are supposedly on their side, when pushing counter establishment moves. But also towards other politicians of course.

While some criticism can be warranted, and Greenwald manages to usually be fair about this issue, blaming everything on Trump and doubly so focusing the blame on Trump fans is unwise, even if one isn't doing so from a lefty perspective. It lets off the hook more powerful, numerous factions like the neocons. Especially the permanent bureaucrats who don't change, or lobbyists, or the media and those that run it. It is better to focus on them, than Trump fans who are at least hopeful of a bigger change than what Trumpism probably can bring.

Trump himself isn't any sort of libertarian's dream when it comes to people like Assange and Snowden. From what I recall, he made some vague murmurs about possibly pardoning Assange at one point, but that went nowhere. Meanwhile, when he was on the campaign trail in 2016, he strongly hinted that Snowden should be executed as a traitor. Which also went nowhere, of course. But my point is that on this issue, Trump has made as many pronouncements which are more authoritarian than the typical establishment politician as he has made pronouncements that are less authoritarian than the typical establishment politician.

However, I agree that Trump has acted like slightly less of a neocon than the typical US president, although that is a low bar to clear.

Trump's own thoughts are immaterial. The behavior of institutions is moved by organized minorities, not the inner monologues of figureheads. After his surprise election, his administration was quickly captured by typical spook mouthpieces and behaved as such. No surprises.

If he is to win this time, it will be on the legs of a persecution by those same institutions and the support of Project 2025 people who, from my estimation, are absolutely woke on the spook question. I've seen some quietly repeat Moldbuggian slogans about retiring everyone from the CIA and they're specifically drawing a plan to purge the deep state instead of Trump's original total lack of steps to drain the swamp.

I don't know if that means he does anything about Assange and Snowden. I don't know if those people survive his election. I don't even know if he'll be elected. But it seems fair to say he gets a mulligan on this particular question given the situation and his staff.

You also ought to give Trump credit for being an obstacle to a much more neocon, interventionist, deep state aligned republican administration.

Neocon and interventionist like assassinating Iran's most important and revered military leader in a foreign capital by drone strike?

I think the neocon interventionist move was "war with Iran." They built the Littoral Combat Ship for a reason, and it wasn't fighting China.

LCS was horrendously bad, was it even suitable for Iran?

In April 2012, Chief of Naval Operations Greenert said, "You won't send it into an anti-access area"; rather, groups of two or three ships are intended to be sent into areas where access is jeopardized to perform missions like minesweeping while under the cover of a destroyer. The LCS's main purpose is to take up operations such as patrolling, port visits, anti-piracy, and partnership-building exercises to free up high-end surface combatants for increased combat availability.

Sounds like it was supposed to be handling Yemen...

By May 2022, the Navy shifted its plans to decommission nine LCS warships in Fiscal Year 2023, citing their ineffective anti-submarine warfare system, their inability to perform any of the Navy's missions, constant breakdowns, and structural failures in high-stress areas of the ships.

Or not.

I think the idea was that it was supposed to help handle the swarms of Iranian speedboats.

My vague sense of Iranian capabilities is that once we fielded the LCS in numbers their capabilities had evolved beyond merely "100 speedboats with warheads" anyway, although we know from Ukraine that the threat from speedboat swarms is real.

The key is the comparison. Would a typical republican be just as interventionist as Trump was, or much more? The reality is that there is in fact a much more gung ho republican faction and there has been backlash against Trump for not going along with the neocon agenda, as much as they wanted.

Both in regards to Ukraine, Syria, and general American involvement and intervention with other countries.

Greenwood's

I raised an eyebrow at OP's misspelling of his name as some sort of funny-only-to-him joke, but I'm a bit surprised to see you go along with it. Anyway, yeah, the idea that Greenwald in any way supported the narrative that Assange was too paranoid is ridiculous.

and supporting Trump on the basis of some fantasy version of Trump in their heads.

I suppose, but as a counterpoint this entire argument seems to rely on a fantasy version of how politics works. Presidents aren't absolute monarchs, they still have to form coalitions, man positions with actual people, not programmable NPC's, etc. That the Republican establishment, which was the pool he had to draw from, were completely hostile to Assange is not a surprise. Trump himself probably doesn't care one way or another.

Presidents aren't absolute monarchs, they still have to form coalitions, man positions with actual people, not programmable NPC's, etc.

This is one respect in which Presidents are actually monarchs - he can pardon anyone of a federal crime at the stroke of a pen.

I meant it in the sense that people working for him will have their own agendas. I agree that if he really wanted to get Assange out, he could have, and this is why his base should put more pressure on him.

Ugh, I thought that there was something wrong with that spelling but didn't bother to check. To be honest I haven't followed or thought about Greenwald for some time.

Trump himself probably doesn't care one way or another.

Even that would be quite a different stance from those who somehow think that Trump and Assange are on the same side (against the globalists or whatever).

Even that would be quite a different stance from those who somehow think that Trump and Assange are on the same side (against the globalists or whatever).

Not too different, or at least it makes the idea of voting Trump to bust out Assange a not-terrible one, it's just that you have to put actual pressure on him, instead of hoping he'll do it on his own initiative.

Ultimately this is the reason why I consider Trump to be easily the best option americans have had in a long time. Of course a wise and devoted to the population's well-being president/king would be best, but at least a vanitous president is a lot easier to keep aligned with the population's wishes than the puppet of a PMC that believes they should be the one deciding what the population should desire. The former just has to be reminded that the population will love him if he does what they want. The only thing that seems to motivate the PMC to go along or pretend to go along with the population's wishes is the threat of losing to a populist who could undo their long term sociocultural engineering projects.

Unfortunately, I don't trust the population's wishes either.

One question I have is whether Assange’s conviction would even be guaranteed if he was tried in the US.

Here’s the indictment. Almost all the charges are ‘espionage’, and a lot of it seems to rely on proving that Assange knew he was damaging the US and essentially acted as Manning’s handler rather than just using Manning as a source.

That seems like a pretty difficult thing to prove, unlike Snowden Assange didn’t flee to an enemy state, and while he is an asshole it doesn’t seem likely he’s working for the Russians or Chinese. Assange can cite a history of years of working as a journalist/editor of wikileaks in the public interest before he was arrested. Is it not possible that Biden is worried about the risk of Assange being acquitted?

unlike Snowden Assange didn’t flee to an enemy state

Even today, Russia is not an enemy of the US by the strict definition of "has war been declared?". That might seem like semantics, but it has consequences. For example, I think that it would be almost impossible in the US to convict someone of treason for helping Russia, since at the very minimum (and even then it would be hard) I think the US would have to have declared war for the "adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort" part of the US Constitution to apply. But I could be wrong, maybe someone more legally versed can weigh in.

In 2013, when Snowden went to Russia, I don't see how Russia could have been considered an enemy of the US through any other than a very belligerent geopolitical worldview on the part of the US. A geopolitical rival? Sure. But not a full-blown enemy. Those were still the days of close economic ties and small, limited wars like the ones in Serbia and Georgia.

Convicting Assange of treason in the US should be absolutely impossible, because he's not an American citizen or even permanent resident, and never has been. He owes the US no duty of loyalty. That doesn't mean it actually is impossible of course, but 18 USC 2381 doesn't disagree on the requirement.

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

Espionage, on the other hand, can be committed by foreign nationals.

This is the most hilarious legal clause ever. If you're guilty of treason you shall suffer death... or be subject to prison for five years and fined $10,000. What a spread of possible sentences!

Indeed!

This spread dates back to the Civil War, when there were a lot of traitors whom the government would rather not put to death. In the event, most of them weren't even charged, but Congress wanted to have that option available.

"Not less than" is doing a lot of work, or at least more than you appear to be giving it credit for. But yes, it is quite a spread.

I also find the phrase "suffer death" amusing, especially in light of @self_made_human 's transhumanist rants on that topic.

That phrasing has a long tradition in Anglo law, see e.g. the Royal Navy's articles of war from 1749:

      • shall suffer death, or such other punishment, as from the nature and degree of the offence a court martial shall deem him to deserve

This or very similar phrasing appears in many of the articles.

Wasn't Snowden on record as trying to go somewhere else (Ecuador?), but ended up at the Moscow airport when the lawfare began?

That seems like a pretty difficult thing to prove

I thought there are chat logs of him instructing Manning on what commands he should run to hack the US and exfiltrate secrets? That doesn't strike me as run-of-the-mill journalism at that point.

hack the US

What does that even mean? I don't think Manning hacked anything, let alone "the US".

I have also heard the part where Assange helped Manning with the commands to run to exfiltrate the data, but I wouldn't be so confident that to ban this would define a test that normal journalists would generally pass. Have none of them provided their sources with some kind of technical support, like "here's how you use this camera you asked us to lend you"? What about interviewers that help their interviewees tweak the formulation of a statement that winds up becoming the linchpin of the latter's violation of some confidentiality law, like "S: So what I'm saying is the US r... rev... - J: reverse engineered? - S: ... reverse engineered alien technology, right."?

The indictment argues that Assange believed the evidence would be used to harm the United States and at least implies he had that motive.

I've long thought the jurisdictional arguments would make it difficult: to my knowledge, Assange is not a US citizen, nor has he set foot in the US. I can accept that the actions happened as-published, but it seems, well, inconsistent to allow nation-states to extradite people with such a limited claim to jurisdiction. If such a principle were evenly applied, would the US seriously consider, say, a Russian demand to extradite OSINT twitter accounts? Or is it just a principal that applies to citizens of close allies (Australia in this instance)? Would it even be considered if the roles were reversed?

It seems we'd be better served writing it out explicitly and reciprocally: "it is against [local country] law to actively spy on [allied country] outside of the national intelligence apparatus" doesn't sound completely crazy, but I don't think it is written anywhere.

Fundamentally it'd be a political trial, so venue is key. DC & SDNY are famous for going along with whatever the elite liberal opinion is, regardless of the details.

He'd have a decent chance of acquittal elsewhere but the federal prosecutors are very aware of that, so one of those two districts is likely.

Judges are almost always concilient with prosecution when national security in invoked in the United States. I don't want to indight the whole process, but the chances that he wouldn't end up in a federal prison after embarrassing the whole of US Diplomacy are nil. Best case scenario they'd keep fiddling with the case to get him on a technicality.

Being a now mostly irrelevant (in that he has suffered enough to be an example already) political bargaining chip is his best hope.

What your narrative doesn't explain is why the US is considering dropping charges now - assuming that they actually are considering that and it's not just another deception.

I'm not sure your timeline is correct - I thought the US maintained that there were no charges against Assange until he was arrested in the UK. I do agree that the USA absolutely wanted to get it's hands on Assange while lying through it's teeth that it didn't want him. I don't see that as a partisan issue. When the US put in it's extradition request 15 minutes after Assange was booted out of the Ecuadorian embassy the verb used was that the charges were 'unsealed', implying that they had been in place for some time.

But the idea that these Swedish charges were a trumped up excuse just to get him into the hands of the Americans doesn't pass the smell test for me. My impression is that the Swedish are not particularly sympathetic to the goals of the US intelligence or military community, are generally appalled by the state of the US justice/prison system, and are not particularly beholden to the US in a way that would make extradition especially likely. Certainly I think the Swedish were less likely to extradite Assange than the British, who notably have still not extradited him. Additionally, because of the way extradition law works, had he submitted to the European arrest warrant, and the US had then put in an extradition request, then both Sweden and the UK would have had to agree to the extradition to the US. He would have had twice the protection that he currently has. If he was worried that he couldn't trust the Europeans not to sell him out to the Americans, why was he even operating in Europe in the first place? His story just doesn't add up for me.

Finally, and I realise this isn't necessarily relevant to your points, I want to add that I have zero sympathy towards Assange. His game plan seems to have been to hole up in the embassy and then whinge about being a 'political prisoner' and 'held without trial' while doing everything in his power to avoid any trial, even on apolitical charges. 'Victim of psychological torture' - bollocks. He was just straight up a fugitive from justice and his prison sentence for breaching the UK bail act was fair and just. His argument was basically that in order to be safe from the evil machinations of the Americans, he had to be functionally immune to any part of the European justice system, which is obviously absurd. The man is a weasel, and the most surprising thing about this entire episode is that it took him seven whole years to wear out his welcome with the Ecuadorians.

What your narrative doesn't explain is why the US is considering dropping charges now - assuming that they actually are considering that and it's not just another deception.

Leftists and young democrats voters have to be thrown a bone because they're threatening not to show up to vote for Biden over Israel. It's just that.

But the idea that these Swedish charges were a trumped up excuse just to get him into the hands of the Americans doesn't pass the smell test for me.

Thankfully, we don't have to just use our noses for issues like this - we can just go look at the actual facts of the matter. To quote a fairly well credentialed expert on the matter, Nils Melzer...

https://medium.com/@njmelzer/response-to-open-letter-of-1-july-2019-7222083dafc8

Second, as far as SW is concerned, her police report states that, after Assange woke her up trying to initiate intercourse, the two had a conversation in which she asked Assange whether he was wearing a condom and he replied he was not. She then said he “would better not have HIV” and he replied that he did not, after which, she “let him continue” (lät honom fortsätta) to have unprotected intercourse. There are no indications of coercive or incapacitating circumstances suggesting lack of consent. Accordingly, Chief Prosecutor for Stockholm Eva Finne stated: “I do not think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape” and closed the case on 25 August 2010 concluding that the “conduct alleged by SW disclosed no crime at all”. Having examined all the evidence before me, I agree with her. My position, like Finne’s, is not that SW’s account is not credible, but rather that the conduct alleged does not constitute “rape”.

Third, as far as AA is concerned, even the Swedish prosecution never suggested that the conduct alleged by her could amount to “rape”. In a Twitter-message of 22 April 2013, AA herself publicly denied having been raped (jag har inte blivit våldtagen). AA also stated in a tabloid interview that Assange is not violent and that neither she nor SW felt afraid of him. While I agree with the prosecution that AA’s allegations, if proven to be true, could amount to sexual assault other than rape, the fact that she submitted as evidence a condom, supposedly worn and torn during intercourse with Assange, which carried no DNA of either Assange or AA, seriously undermines her credibility.

Fourth, according to their own accounts, neither AA nor SW ever alleged to have been raped, and neither of them intended to report a crime. Rather, evidence shows that AA took SW to a police station, so SW could enquire whether she could force Assange to take an HIV-test. There, they were questioned together by an investigating officer who knew AA personally and ran on the same political party ticket as AA in the general elections three weeks later. When superior investigators insisted on registering SW’s enquiry as a report of “rape” and to immediately issue an arrest warrant against Assange, SW reportedly refused to sign her statement and became so emotionally distraught that the questioning had to be suspended. While at the police station, SW even texted that she “did not want to put any charges on Julian Assange” but that “the police were keen on getting their hands on him” (14:26); and that she was “chocked (sic shocked) when they arrested him” because she “only wanted him to take a test” (17:06). Once Chief Prosecutor Finné had intervened and closed the case, it reportedly was again the police (not SW) who “revised” her statement lodged in the police system to better fit the crime of “rape” before it was resubmitted by a third Social Democrat politician to a different prosecutor who was prepared to re-open the case.

Your position directly contradicts the statements of the people actually involved in this case, and I think that the actual supposed victim's testimony is substantially more reliable than your nasal sentiment.

His game plan seems to have been to hole up in the embassy and then whinge about being a 'political prisoner' and 'held without trial' while doing everything in his power to avoid any trial, even on apolitical charges.

You haven't been paying attention to the case - Assange and his lawyers made multiple offers to testify and participate in a trail as long as there were guarantees that he would not be immediately extradited to the US. He also offered to testify remotely from the embassy, and these requests were denied as well. Assange and his legal representation clearly had substantial reason to believe that arrest in Sweden would lead to US extradition almost immediately, and he was more than willing to participate in the trial if there was an assurance it wasn't an excuse to just immediately send him off to the US. The Swedish prosecutors notably refused to provide any of these assurances, and so he didn't do it despite making multiple good faith attempts to actually have the trial! Your post is riddled with factual errors, and while I don't think everyone has to unconditionally love the man, I think you at least owe it to yourself and the rest of the motte to make sure your opinions are informed by the actual facts of the matter.

I appreciate seeing some of the actual allegations here. You might not have convinced the person you responded to, but it seems pretty compelling to me.

Nothing you have said in your post has surprised me at all, and you have barely engaged with the points I have made. Your attempt to shame me by framing me as uninformed, while vaguely gesturing to the approximately zero factual errors in my post strikes me as an attempt at consensus building. Ironic, considering that you are trying to throw the lofty standards of The Motte in my face while breaking the spirit of its rules. Next time you think that someone may be wrong on The Motte, might I suggest that you spend less effort telling them off and more effort explaining in a specific way why you think they are wrong.

Anyway.

On to your points:

Look all the problems with the sexual assault case against Assange look this makes no sense that’s a bit weird etc etc etc.

Don’t care.

I mean, I don’t get your point. Are you trying to say Assange didn’t commit a crime in Sweden? Because that doesn’t contradict anything I have written. I am totally agnostic on the question of whether Assange committed some sexual crime in Sweden. What I am not agnostic about is that he was expected and required to present himself to the Swedish authorities so that they could conduct an investigation into whether a crime had been committed.

Are you trying to say that the accusations are so shaky that they couldn’t have been anything other than a bad faith attempt by the Swedes to get hold of Assange? Don’t agree there either. There was reason to believe that a crime had been committed, and it was up to the Swedish Police to determine if that was the case. That should pretty obviously involve an interview with the suspect. That the Swedish police wanted to talk to him strikes me as extremely, tediously normal.

And your narrative that this was all just a ruse still makes no sense to me! Why do you think that the Swedish would have been more receptive to a US extradition request than the UK? I’m not even asking for evidence, just some reasoning. And again, if he had been extradited to Sweden by the UK, then both Sweden and the UK would have had to agree to any follow up requests from the USA.

But anyway, this is all totally academic. Regardless of whether he broke the law in Sweden, he certainly broke the law in the UK by violating bail. He gave assurances to the British court that he would appear when summoned and on that basis he was granted bail. He then failed to appear. That’s a crime. For reasons that I have already mentioned, once he was (rightly) convicted under British law he had far fewer legal protections against extradition to the US than if he had just accepted extradition to Sweden in the first place.

He also offered to testify remotely from the embassy.

“What do you mean ‘a zoom call is not an appropriate venue for an interview under caution’? Don’t you know who I am?! I'm Julian Assange god damn it! Your petty ‘procedures’ are meaningless to me!”

I mean, the absolute gall! Can you imagine being pulled over for a warrant in America and telling the cop “I’m afraid being arrested doesn’t really work for me right now, but I’m totally willing to skype this out later.” Sorry Julian, but this isn’t a negotiation, you’re under arrest, get in the police car.

Assange and his lawyers made multiple offers to testify and participate in a trail as long as there were guarantees that he would not be immediately extradited to the US.

The assurances Assange wanted were totally impossible to give, as anyone familiar with, uh, law would understand. The Swedish can’t give someone blanket immunity from extradition. They have treaties. They are required to consider an extradition request from the US. The only assurances they could give Assange would have been the normal ones:

1 - We will not extradite you unless the crime you are accused of would also be a crime here in Sweden.

2 - We will not extradite you unless we are sufficiently certain that you will receive a fair trial.

3 - We will not extradite you unless we are sufficiently certain that you will be treated humanely.

These, of course, would not be enough for Assange. He’s special.

And now, he remains in custody in the UK, because nothing says ‘flight risk’ better than spending seven years holed up in an embassy after you were previously granted bail. Assange is sleeping in a bed fully of his own making.

Are you trying to say that the accusations are so shaky that they couldn’t have been anything other than a bad faith attempt by the Swedes to get hold of Assange?

Intelligence agencies are perfectly capable of using their influence to trump up charges that may not stand up in court, but look plausible enough that you can't prove bad faith in advance. Your standard here is a blank check to the intelligence agencies to get anyone they want.

The accusations might have been in good faith, but they also might not, and the possibility that they aren't was substantial.

Versus your standard that every court action involving a person of interest to the Americans is inherently corrupt? If I can't use plausibility as my basis to judge these things, then what basis can I use?

The theory that the Swedish charges were somehow trumped up by the CIA has one glaring problem: why bother? If the Americans wanted Assange, why bother getting him extradited from the UK to Sweden as an intermediate step? What's the advantage? Why not just request extradition from the UK directly?

If Assange goes along with the extradition to Sweden and then America tries to extradite from Sweden, then he gets to fight extradition in both Swedish and British courts, and he only has to be successful in one of them.

Versus your standard that every court action involving a person of interest to the Americans is inherently corrupt?

Say rather, inherently suspect. Appeals to process require faith in the process being appealed to. The feds observably warp process to satisfy their interests, so naked appeals to process in cases where their interests are in play should not be given the benefit of the doubt.

Suspect, fine. 'Suspect' is reasonable. But 'suspect' alone is not sufficient reason to call bullshit. It's reason to dig, to sniff around, to raise an eyebrow, to build a case. But in the end, you still need to evaluate that case on its merits, not on the feeling of suspicion.

I've gathered a lot of downvotes on this subject. People here clearly disagree with me, but nobody has even taken a crack at the most basic question here - how does it benefit the feds to have Assange extradited to Sweden? That's a real obvious question that nobody seems interested in tackling.

Well, if Nils Melzer's account cited above is correct (which I think it is), then the Swedish prosecution likely singled him out for reasons of his Wikileaks work. This does not have to be the CIA pulling strings, it could simply be that prosecutors like the attention they get from bringing cases against famous people.

I do not believe that one should always be on the side of the law as a citizen. If you know that Saudi Arabia is investigating you for blasphemy and the UAE want you for public indecency after a paparazzi took a photo of you urinating in the desert, it can be reasonable to skip bail in the UAE, thereby committing a purely apolitical crime.

I think that spending a year in the embassy has a similar life quality adjustment cost as spending a year in British or Swedish prison. I think I would rather spend a year in Swedish prison than two years stuck in the embassy. So by my reckoning, Assange time in the embassy paid plenty for any crimes he might have committed in Sweden and skipping bail in the UK.

I agree with you that Assange is kind of a prima donna who thinks he is special, but in my opinion the fact that the DOJ opened a case against him shows that he kinda is special, even if he is less special than he thinks he is.

Sorry Julian, but this isn’t a negotiation, you’re under arrest, get in the police car.

The reason that a traffic stop arrest is not a negotiation is that all the power of the facts and the law is in the hand of the cops. If you manage to run over a sovereign border then suddenly this is not the case any more, so it totally becomes a negotiation.

Cops come to you with an search warrant? No negotiation. Cops want to search your property for a fugitive without a warrant? Negotiate or GTFO.

it could simply be that prosecutors like the attention they get from bringing cases against famous people.

I will agree this is plausible, but on the other hand the Swedish love prosecuting sex crimes. It's what gets them out of bed in the morning. They live for that shit. Swedish prosecutors don't need the accused to be famous to be dragging them over the coals for possible sex crimes - it's just what they do.

Plus, even if your theory is correct, there's no reason to believe that Sweden would have been particularly receptive to an extradition request from the Americans.

It can be reasonable to skip bail in the UAE, thereby committing a purely apolitical crime.

Sure, but the analogy only holds to the extent that you are willing to equivocate between blasphemy laws and sex crime laws.

Plus, if Assange had managed to flee to Ecuador proper then we wouldn't be having this conversation, but all he managed to do was flee to a room in an embassy. At that point it was completely viable for the UK to just wait him out. They didn't need to negotiate. Sure, the UK home sec could probably have made an exception and just dropped all charges and granted Assange asylum... But why the hell would he? Why give a break to a guy who is absolutely determined to become a national embarrassment and inviting those godawful UN rapporteurs to come and accuse the UK of humans rights violations because Assange would rather hole himself up in an embassy for the rest of his life rather than go attend a police interview in god damned Sweden of all places.

would rather hole himself up in an embassy for the rest of his life rather than go attend a police interview in god damned Sweden of all places.

That's an inaccurate description. It isn't the police interview in Sweden that he didn't want, it's being thrown into a cell in the US that he didn't want.

So he says. But neither he nor anyone in this thread has offered a coherent explanation for why going to Sweden placed him at risk of being thrown in a US prison cell.

When they fought the extradition attempt to Sweden in the UK courts his lawyers put forward no arguments as to why that might be a risk, they merely hinted.

These, of course, would not be enough for Assange. He’s special.

Rather, his opinion of sufficient assurances as to humane treatment and the fairness of his trial are not the same as those of the Swedish government.

If I'm ever tried for something, chances are that it'll be something I think I shouldn't be charged for at all, let alone have a "fair trial".

Maybe so. But if the charges are linked with a political matter, chances are you would be right.

Assange's evaluation of his situation and that of the Swedish State cannot in my view be ranked in legitimacy a priori. No gavel, scepter or crown magically imbues one with truth. Things must be judged on their merits.

What your narrative doesn't explain is why the US is considering dropping charges now

There are several potentially unrelated items:

  • Britain is close to making a decision on extradition of Assange to the US

  • Australia Parliament in February this year decided to formally request the US to drop the charges against Assange

  • Biden made the stray comment after being asked by a US reporter during a visit by the Japanese Prime Minister

  • The AUKUS alliance is currently looking at expanding to include Japan

  • The Australian PM said something today about the release of Assange as being in Australia's National Interest

My guess is that its just a slow response from the US government in considering Australia's request from February because of the multiple levels/departments of the US government that have an interest in this. Also there is a very low chance (~10% chance) that some of this is about keeping Australia happy by throwing them a bone at the same time they're looking at upgrading a regional alliance.

Why do the Australians suddenly care about Assange?

The Labor and Green Parties seem to have have been lobbied for the last few years to make freedom for Assange actual policy of the Australian Govt. There has been crossbench support from the far left (Greens), centre left (Labor) and even some from the centre right (Liberal party) and independents, with the majority of support on the left side of the aisle.

Assange's father met with the then leader of the opposition (now PM) Albanese back in 2022 and even earlier to discuss the possibility of Assange's release. At the time there wasn't enough political support to push for his release, but Albanese seemed supportive.

When the Labor party came into power, Albanese became PM and Labor supported policies started making their way through parliament. This article says that a February 2024 UK High Court hearing gave impetus to putting a motion before the Australian Parliament.

From the article -

"The House of Representatives voted by 86 to 42 in favour of a motion that said, directly, that the United Kingdom and the United States should bring things to a close so Assange can return home to his family in Australia. Those in favour included Anthony Albanese and the prime minister’s Labor colleagues."

tldr - There has always been support and lobbying to free Assange in Australia (focused mainly within the left wing), but its only recently that enough political power was focused by the impetus of the UK actually looking like it was sending Assange to the US that things finally coalesced into official Australian Government policy.

Labor (centre left) are in power now after a long time of apathetic (in regards to Assange) Liberal (centre right) governments.

He is an Australian citizen

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