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Keep in mind all the crimes by US officials that Assange revealed. In my view many of those crimes committed by officials are treason, yet all have been swept u
by resters 8y ago
Keep in mind all the crimes by US officials that Assange revealed. In my view many of those crimes committed by officials are treason, yet all have been swept under the rug.
- milquetoastaf 8y agoWhat crimes are those again?
- idlewords 8y agoWhataboutism is not a defense.
- resters 8y agoI’d have no problem with Assange being punished if the other journalists were, or if the government officials were.
- idlewords 8y agoNonsense is not a rebuttal!
- coldtea 8y agoOne-liner slogans are not rebuttals either.
- Veen 8y agoAssange is accused of a crime. Should he be forgiven because some other people are also accused of crimes?
- resters 8y agoShould law enforcement focus on prosecuting a shoplifter who reported Jerry Sandusky’s crimes while ignoring Jerry?
- TremendousJudge 8y agoIn this case there's a bit of a conflict of interest, considering that he was the one who showed that the government accusing him committed crimes
- coldtea 8y agoIf all those other people are let go, then yes. Doubly so, if they have done much more important crimes. Triply so, if he helped unveil them. Else it's not even justice anymore, it's courts used as an arbitrary instrument of coercion yield this or that power's convenience.
- justinmchase 8y agoHe should be forgiven because there should be an exception for whistleblowing.
- Veen 8y agoHe’s not accused of whistleblowing. He’s accused of aiding in the theft of military secrets. And for obvious reasons, whistleblowing exemptions can’t apply to the military and secret services.
- rorykoehler 8y agoSo no one is uncovered and report crimes committed by nations because they created self serving laws? Sounds tyrannical.
- dickeytk 8y agostare decisis is (in common law countries)
- idlewords 8y agoThat is true, but also a non sequitur.
- coldtea 8y agoAccusation of whataboutism is a thought-stopper. What-about-X allows you to put things in perspective. Things - including crimes (or alleged crimes) - don't exist in isolation. It depends who they happen to (I wouldn't care much to punish the person who helped murder a dictator and bring democracy, for example), it depends if they help stop bigger crimes (I'd applaud the small guy that does a crime to bring down much larger criminals), and they And even if an accusation is only checked in isolation by a court (though even courts take into account the larger context), we're not courts, we're people and we can see beyond the narrow confines and what's legal, to see what's good/moral/etc. Jean Valjean's conviction was "legal" too. Without that, one is either purposefully pushing for your own agenda (our their own country's etc.), or getting lured into considering X alone, without anybody letting them consider its significance and bigger impact. They're then "straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel". (That's also part of how "demonizing" someone works). The knee-jerk condemnation of "whataboutism" is a legalist/moralist thought-stopper that kills all political thinking and nuance of society/world at large.
- bduerst 8y agoComplaining about whataboutism being called out is even more tangential and thought-stopping than actually calling it out. Whataboutism is not a valid defense, it's a deflection in the form of a red herring.
- resters 8y agoNot true. So called whataboutism is used to deflect a valid critique and defend an indefensible position. I think people claim whataboutism because they lack an understanding of scope. Assange published secrets, ok. That is possibly a crime. But the secrets revealed far worse crimes. Would you defend Jerry Sandusky by saying that an informant being convicted of shoplifting was the most important part of the Sandusky case?
- bduerst 8y agoThat's a self-serving hypothetical. I would not defend Assange by saying that some of the people whom he leaked documents about have not been prosecuted yet. The latter doesn't justify any defense.
- PhasmaFelis 8y agoI'm usually the first to call out whataboutism, but Assange is literally being prosecuted for exposing US crimes. The rape allegation is a real issue and shouldn't be swept under the rug, but it's actually the US that is doing that--he's not being extradited to Sweden to face sexual assault charges; he's going to the US to be punished for WikiLeaks.
- dnautics 8y agoTreason has a specific definition in the us Constitution and it's a quite difficult bar to cross.
- danso 8y agoThe Iraq War leak suggested war crimes, but not treason IIRC: https://www.wired.com/2010/10/wikileaks-press/ https://www.wired.com/2010/10/wikileaks-press/
- resters 8y agoLying about the war crimes was treason in my view
- matthewowen 8y ago"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."
- resters 8y agoWhat better aid to our enemies than spending trillions on a futile war?
- gamblor956 8y agoGenerally, spending too much money to bomb the shit out of your enemies is not considering providing aid to them....anywhere.
- resters 8y agoYou are assuming that the groups we are told are our enemies are actually enemies, and that they are the most significant enemies.
- alwaysanagenda 8y agoHe's the only one who could testify about the truth behind the DNC leak (Seth Rich) and the Podesta e-mails (phished). Neither were 'hacked' by the Russians. With the Mueller investigation effectively over, it's time to turn the tables. Assange is a valuable asset in this endeavor.
- e1ven 8y agoYou realize you sound pretty far out-of-mainstream when you say things like that, right?
- akhilcacharya 8y agoIn fairness to OP, this is effectively the Sean Hannity line so I wouldn't say it's "out of the mainstream" anymore.
- justinmchase 8y agoThere is multiple points of evidence that Seth Rich was in contact with wikileaks before his murder and was either leaking documents or intending to leak documents.
- akhilcacharya 8y agoYou mean the investigation that proved that Assange attempted to weaponize the grief of a family for the gain of Russian political interests? That investigation?
- justinmchase 8y agoActually, there was some evidence that Seth Rich was indeed in contact with Wikileaks. There is no confirmation that he actually was the source of any leaks but there were email exchanges with Assange on his laptop and he appeared to be _intending_ to leak at least. This was according to Seymore Hersh, you can find audio of him describing Rich's involvement and other discussion on the topic. To be clear, Rich's murder could have been a total coincidence and he could have possibly not been the source of any published leaks. Given that, it was not weaponization but a reasonable assumption on the part of Wikileaks to conclude that Rich had probably been assasinated.
- mavdi 8y agoNone of the things he revealed can be classified as treason. War crimes maybe, treason no way. I also wonder why he never revealed any of Russia's alleged crimes in Ukraine or Syria. Just a thought.
- ifdefdebug 8y agoDid he have access to data about "Russia's alleged crimes in Ukraine or Syria"?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ivanhoe 8y agoSorry, but this is a nonsense. I grew up in a country where people made it a national sport of justifying one side's crimes by arguing that the other sides (Croats/Serbs/Bosniaks/etc) committed the crimes too. That's just stupid. So what if he's concentrated on one side, does it make it a less of a crime? Should he have not publish it, unless he had an equal amount of dirt on Russians on hands in the same time (Syria and Ukraine haven't even happen yet in the moment of these US leaks)? And finally, if it's wrong to concentrate only on one side's wrongdoing, does it mean that all other reporters - who report ONLY on Russians for years now - are guilty the same way?
- justinmchase 8y agoWikileaks only publishes what is leaked to them. They did publish the `Spy Files Russia` documents in 2017: https://wikileaks.org/spyfiles/russia/ https://wikileaks.org/spyfiles/russia/
- nisuni 8y agoCan we please stop using this talking point about Russia? WikiLeaks publishes what they get (after verifying credibility). They cannot publish what is not leaked to them. Also: they did publish things on Russia.
- resters 8y agoYou are overlooking the most significant item. Why was all the information in the war logs classified in the first place? The power to classify information is only legitimately used for very narrow purposes. The war logs show that the US government used that power inappropriately to deliberately deceive the American people about the war efforts. The men and women of the armed forces risk their lives over these wars. The public funds them with taxation. The wars have cost as much as 7 years of a 50% tax cut for everyone earning under $500K. That is such a large number that any social program, any infrastructure challenge is dwarfed by it. The post 9/11 wars are the biggest financial fraud in the history of the world. We found out thanks to Assange that our leaders hid information from us so that they could continue stealing our money to wage a war that was very different from what they claimed it was. We place a great deal of trust in our leaders, and Assange showed that it was not deserved. Still, none of the leaders who did this have been brought to justice.
- atemerev 8y agoWhich of his crimes looks like treason? He didn’t hack anything, his only “crime” is providing a publishing outlet. (And yes, Assange is highly biased and anti-American, which is not good, but publishing leaks shouldn’t be a crime.)
- mrleinad 8y agoIt's funny to label someone anti-american, when all they've done is expose america's crimes and ways of manipulating the rest of the world. Makes you think what does being pro-america mean.
- resters 8y agoExactly. Assange tried to help the American people learn about dishonesty and fraud committed by elected officials.
- posterboy 8y agoOn second reading, I think OP meant the war crimes ("many of these") were treason. I don't know what was done, but I suspect that's not really true under a narrow definition.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- resters 8y agoMy earlier comment was unclear. Assange revealed serious crimes by US officials.
- atemerev 8y agoOK, thank you for the clarification!
- kermitismyhero 8y agoI would argue that Assange only really became hostile to the American government after senior politicians and officials started calling publicly for his murder. If a US Secretary of State repeatedly and publicly commented about how it would be fantastic if you could be killed in a drone strike, wouldn't that make you rather unfriendly towards them?
- tdcbfdct3 8y agoI'm having trouble finding any on The Hague's website https://www.icc-cpi.int/Pages/cases.aspx https://www.icc-cpi.int/Pages/cases.aspx