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I'd think this would make you less likely to believe in conspiracies. If this were a conspiracy someone at a high level would have agreed to it and the whole

I'd think this would make you less likely to believe in conspiracies. If this were a conspiracy someone at a high level would have agreed to it and the whole point of it would be to get media coverage. What happened instead is just the opposite. As soon as the case started getting media coverage the high level people went into over drive to investigate the claim and determined it was unfounded. Even if the conspiracy was just to get the claim out there briefly the Swedish government wouldn't have withdrawn it by saying the charge was unfounded. If it was a conspiracy they wouldn't give a reason or they'd say it's still under investigation. That way people who were inclined not to trust Assange could continue to believe it.

nkassis 16y ago
Tin foil hat on: I'm assuming that the high level person who looked into it and asked them to withdraw the warrant knew not of the other high level (could also not be swedish) person who asked for the warrant to be issued. Secret services have ways of gettings done. But they aren't always good at it. EDIT: clearing up what I'm trying to say ;p
- TomOfTTB 16y ago
  I supposed it's possible but the CIA would have to be pretty reckless. When I said high level people I was thinking their Secretary of State or higher. Because if the CIA (or whoever in the US government) is trying to use another country's legal system to frame someone that would be considered the conducting operations on foreign soil. That's very much against International Law without getting the permission of the Swedish State Department. So if they did that without the very highest levels of government being involved they'd be risking a very public international incident plus they'd be cutting themselves off from ever being able to impeach Assange's credibility in the future (because once you have a verified attempt to discredit him in such a manner no one's ever going to believe a claim against him again). Again I'm sure it's possible but it just seems too reckless to be plausible to me.
  - ryoshu 16y ago
    There are 21 arrest warrants for suspected CIA operatives that kidnapped someone in Italy: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4297966.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4297966.stm
    - rdtsc 16y ago
      Exactly. After all these years people still defend the CIA with the phrase "This is so low they couldn't have possibly done it."
    - tptacek 16y ago
      There are 21 convictions of CIA operatives in Italy. They were convicted for capturing Abu Omar and delivering him to Egypt in 2003. This happened at the height of the US/Middle East conflict (before major combat started in Iraq). Abu Omar was a prominent member of Jamaat Islamiya, a peer organization of Egyption Islamic Jihad, a group publicly affiliated with "al Qaeda" (probably more for PR purposes, though) and a group led in part by Omar Abdel-Rahman, the guy who coordinated the first bombing of the WTC. Julian Assange is not a leader of a violent Islamist movement. We are not at war with Julian Assange. No foreign policy objective is accomplished by kidnapping him off the streets of Sweden or Iceland or wherever he is now. I don't want to sound (too much) like I'm advocating for the capture of alleged terrorists off western city streets. That's not my point. My point is this: do I believe that the CIA might try to kidnap or kill someone they believe to be a key figure in a bona fide "terrorist" (ie: organized, violent, competently armed, transnational militant Islamist) organization? Absolutely. Does that mean kidnapping is S.O.P. for the CIA any time anybody antagonizes the US? Ralph Nader better watch his ass, then; third-party left-wing candidates pose a greater danger to the current administration.
      - MichaelSalib 16y ago
        Julian Assange is not a leader of a violent Islamist movement Interestingly enough, it seems that neither is Abu Omar. After rendering him to Egypt where the secret police tortured him for a few years (electric shocks to the genitals, rape, beatings, the usual), an Egyptian court finally freed him declaring that there was no evidence against him. So, to recap: the CIA kidnapped a guy and delivered him to the Egyptian secret police for torture. But even in an insanely corrupt dictatorship like Egypt, where prosecutors have, um, very wide discretion let us say, they couldn't get any charges to stick. Including association with a terrorist organization, which is a serious crime under Egyptian law. So as far as we know, there's no reason to believe this guy has ever done anything wrong. I mean, if a police state like Egypt can't manage to find (or concoct) something, anything with which to convict him, how dangerous can he be? And if he's not actually dangerous, then sending 20-odd CIA agents to kidnap him and render him for torture seems kind of crazy....My point is: the CIA sometimes acts in ways that make very little sense on the outside. Would it make sense for them to kill Assange? No, it would be insane. But this isn't an organization that has historically demonstrated an overabundance of sanity. I doubt they're trying to kill him, but arguments premised on CIA sanity seem...rather weak.
studer 16y ago
> or they'd say it's still under investigation. It still is under investigation, though. Whatever happened is not serious enough for a rape charge with the current evidence, but as I mention below, molestation or just general asshattery is still on the table.
Ardit20 16y ago
Conspiracy has a bad canotation. You can have a conspiracy to overthrow some government, you can also have a wacky belief into something which has no base in any reasonable doubt to believe. The latter being the way the word conspiracy theory is used. There is however no conspiracy here. A national government, the most mighty power in any nation, seeks to arrest a man and makes such intention known to the entire world. A man this is about who we have read only recently by certain people asked to be arrested in defiance of international law and without having committed a crime, a man who was accused by the US government for having blood on his hands for leaking information which apparently has nothing new to say, a man of whom people are speculating as to how the government will be ridden of, the preferred choice of the speculators being to kill him. A conspiracy is something which has no base in reality. This is beyond that. In this instance there is no base to not believe in the "conspiracy". Also, it is telling that only hours after an article was submitted here which did not make the front page of HN, an article by CNN on a blog on CNN, asked whether this is a smear campaign that the Associated Press reports that the warrant is withdrawn. I for one have no reasonable doubt. I wish not to engage in any games of thought. I would rather see this for what it is, an absolute disgrace by a democratic government who is conspiring against its people and their will.
- tptacek 16y ago
  The notion that the US endeavors to arrest Assange is itself a conspiracy theory, as there is no direct evidence to support it. What crime would he be charged with? When you build a narrative on a premise like that, you're already heading off into tinfoil hat country. People routinely assert --- far more credibly --- that Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld have blood on their hands. Note also that the current headline on CNN is "Rape ccusation dropped against WikiLeaks founder", and the first story under that is "Is Assange target of smear campaign". Of course, this is neither here nor there; the CNN home page is engineered to maximize page views, not enlightenment. Would you like a screenshot?
  - Ardit20 16y ago
    I did not say the US government. I said: "we have read only recently by certain people asked to be arrested in defiance of international law" Why would I want a screenshot? This was written at 8:30 US time http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/08/21/smear-campaign-suspected-in-assange-arrest/ http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/08/21/smear-campaign-suspecte... That might be irrelevant. My point was that a conspiracy theory is something which has no base in reason. The entirety of these events however cries out for an explanation.

nkassis 16y ago

Tin foil hat on: I'm assuming that the high level person who looked into it and asked them to withdraw the warrant knew not of the other high level (could also not be swedish) person who asked for the warrant to be issued. Secret services have ways of gettings done. But they aren't always good at it. EDIT: clearing up what I'm trying to say ;p

TomOfTTB 16y ago
I supposed it's possible but the CIA would have to be pretty reckless. When I said high level people I was thinking their Secretary of State or higher. Because if the CIA (or whoever in the US government) is trying to use another country's legal system to frame someone that would be considered the conducting operations on foreign soil. That's very much against International Law without getting the permission of the Swedish State Department. So if they did that without the very highest levels of government being involved they'd be risking a very public international incident plus they'd be cutting themselves off from ever being able to impeach Assange's credibility in the future (because once you have a verified attempt to discredit him in such a manner no one's ever going to believe a claim against him again). Again I'm sure it's possible but it just seems too reckless to be plausible to me.
- ryoshu 16y ago
  There are 21 arrest warrants for suspected CIA operatives that kidnapped someone in Italy: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4297966.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4297966.stm
  - rdtsc 16y ago
    Exactly. After all these years people still defend the CIA with the phrase "This is so low they couldn't have possibly done it."
  - tptacek 16y ago
    There are 21 convictions of CIA operatives in Italy. They were convicted for capturing Abu Omar and delivering him to Egypt in 2003. This happened at the height of the US/Middle East conflict (before major combat started in Iraq). Abu Omar was a prominent member of Jamaat Islamiya, a peer organization of Egyption Islamic Jihad, a group publicly affiliated with "al Qaeda" (probably more for PR purposes, though) and a group led in part by Omar Abdel-Rahman, the guy who coordinated the first bombing of the WTC. Julian Assange is not a leader of a violent Islamist movement. We are not at war with Julian Assange. No foreign policy objective is accomplished by kidnapping him off the streets of Sweden or Iceland or wherever he is now. I don't want to sound (too much) like I'm advocating for the capture of alleged terrorists off western city streets. That's not my point. My point is this: do I believe that the CIA might try to kidnap or kill someone they believe to be a key figure in a bona fide "terrorist" (ie: organized, violent, competently armed, transnational militant Islamist) organization? Absolutely. Does that mean kidnapping is S.O.P. for the CIA any time anybody antagonizes the US? Ralph Nader better watch his ass, then; third-party left-wing candidates pose a greater danger to the current administration.
    - MichaelSalib 16y ago
      Julian Assange is not a leader of a violent Islamist movement Interestingly enough, it seems that neither is Abu Omar. After rendering him to Egypt where the secret police tortured him for a few years (electric shocks to the genitals, rape, beatings, the usual), an Egyptian court finally freed him declaring that there was no evidence against him. So, to recap: the CIA kidnapped a guy and delivered him to the Egyptian secret police for torture. But even in an insanely corrupt dictatorship like Egypt, where prosecutors have, um, very wide discretion let us say, they couldn't get any charges to stick. Including association with a terrorist organization, which is a serious crime under Egyptian law. So as far as we know, there's no reason to believe this guy has ever done anything wrong. I mean, if a police state like Egypt can't manage to find (or concoct) something, anything with which to convict him, how dangerous can he be? And if he's not actually dangerous, then sending 20-odd CIA agents to kidnap him and render him for torture seems kind of crazy....My point is: the CIA sometimes acts in ways that make very little sense on the outside. Would it make sense for them to kill Assange? No, it would be insane. But this isn't an organization that has historically demonstrated an overabundance of sanity. I doubt they're trying to kill him, but arguments premised on CIA sanity seem...rather weak.

studer 16y ago

> or they'd say it's still under investigation. It still is under investigation, though. Whatever happened is not serious enough for a rape charge with the current evidence, but as I mention below, molestation or just general asshattery is still on the table.

Ardit20 16y ago

Conspiracy has a bad canotation. You can have a conspiracy to overthrow some government, you can also have a wacky belief into something which has no base in any reasonable doubt to believe. The latter being the way the word conspiracy theory is used. There is however no conspiracy here. A national government, the most mighty power in any nation, seeks to arrest a man and makes such intention known to the entire world. A man this is about who we have read only recently by certain people asked to be arrested in defiance of international law and without having committed a crime, a man who was accused by the US government for having blood on his hands for leaking information which apparently has nothing new to say, a man of whom people are speculating as to how the government will be ridden of, the preferred choice of the speculators being to kill him. A conspiracy is something which has no base in reality. This is beyond that. In this instance there is no base to not believe in the "conspiracy". Also, it is telling that only hours after an article was submitted here which did not make the front page of HN, an article by CNN on a blog on CNN, asked whether this is a smear campaign that the Associated Press reports that the warrant is withdrawn. I for one have no reasonable doubt. I wish not to engage in any games of thought. I would rather see this for what it is, an absolute disgrace by a democratic government who is conspiring against its people and their will.

tptacek 16y ago
The notion that the US endeavors to arrest Assange is itself a conspiracy theory, as there is no direct evidence to support it. What crime would he be charged with? When you build a narrative on a premise like that, you're already heading off into tinfoil hat country. People routinely assert --- far more credibly --- that Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld have blood on their hands. Note also that the current headline on CNN is "Rape ccusation dropped against WikiLeaks founder", and the first story under that is "Is Assange target of smear campaign". Of course, this is neither here nor there; the CNN home page is engineered to maximize page views, not enlightenment. Would you like a screenshot?
- Ardit20 16y ago
  I did not say the US government. I said: "we have read only recently by certain people asked to be arrested in defiance of international law" Why would I want a screenshot? This was written at 8:30 US time http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/08/21/smear-campaign-suspected-in-assange-arrest/ http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/08/21/smear-campaign-suspecte... That might be irrelevant. My point was that a conspiracy theory is something which has no base in reason. The entirety of these events however cries out for an explanation.