Five years ago, Julian Assange commanded such media attention, you’d have thought he posed the greatest threat to the United States since Osama bin Laden. Yet media mentions of him soon became as noteworthy as those of Ted Kaczynski or Eric Rudolph. Exactly.
As it happens, I’m on record not only decrying the cause celebre Assange used to be, but also presaging the hapless sideshow he would become. The following excerpt from “Ecuador Grants Wikileaker Julian Assange Asylum … in London?” August 20, 2012, shows this.
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Such is the nature of groupthink among Western commentators that you’d be hard-pressed to find any who support, as I do, Russia’s decision on Friday to incarcerate three Pussy Rioters. The nature of their political hooliganism warrants prosecution.
Likewise you’d be hard-pressed to find any who oppose, as I do, Ecuador’s decision that same day to grant Julian Assange asylum. The nature of his alleged sexual offenses warrants prosecution.
[Britain] maintains that it has an obligation to extradite him to Sweden in accordance with the Vienna Convention’s Extradition Act and pursuant to the finding of just cause by its own Supreme Court.
To be fair, Assange maintains that he does not fear criminal prosecution in Sweden. He fears that, if extradited, Sweden will promptly extradite him to the United States to face the death penalty for publishing a treasure trove of classified government documents on his infamous site, WikiLeaks.
For the record, here is how I characterized his fate in this respect two years ago:
[I]f these leaks pose (or have caused) the kind of damage U.S. officials claim, then Julian Assange, the defiant discloser of all government secrets who heads WikiLeaks, should be dead or sitting in Guantanamo Bay.
(“WikiLeaks More U.S. Secrets,” The iPINIONS Journal, November 29, 2010)
But I hasten now to clarify that, if extradited, tried, and convicted under the Espionage Act, Assange would be sentenced to prison, not death. After all, the United States stopped executing people for espionage decades ago. It’s also instructive that prosecutors have already declared they will not be seeking the death penalty against Bradley Manning, the U.S. soldier who stole those classified documents for Assange.
Meanwhile, it is plainly absurd for Assange to be championing freedom of speech from sanctuary being provided by a country that is notorious for denying this freedom. Not to mention that his schtick about being a martyr for transparency and freedom of the press smacks of nothing more than a cynical ploy to avoid doing time for his crime(s).
It is hardly surprising, of course, that pathologically anti-American countries are standing in solidarity with Ecuador. But I am stupefied that so many Western commentators are standing in solidarity with Assange. Not least because they are doing so at the expense of his alleged victims who have been waiting for years for this self-righteous crusader to be brought to justice…
It is irrelevant, and I’m sure Sweden couldn’t care less, that Assange fears the United States is on a ‘witch hunt’ against WikiLeaks – as he claimed during his sermon on the windowsill yesterday…
In the meantime the world is being treated to a Mexican standoff. There’s no way Ecuador can sneak him out of the embassy, let alone the country; therefore, Assange could be inside for a very long time…
That said, if Assange were exposing government corruption and/or actions that betray the public trust, I would be his most ardent supporter. But in his foolhardy and untenable ambition to foster complete transparency in diplomatic relations, he has only ensured that diplomats will be even more secretive in all of their dealings to avoid even the remotest possibility of being ‘exposed.’
Which is why WikiLeaks is about as relevant today as yesterday’s newspaper. And Assange himself will be old news soon enough – as the fickle Twitterverse, which seems to determine all the news that’s fit to follow these days, becomes obsessed with the next sensational story…
It is truly mind-boggling that his supporters do not even seem concerned that Assange’s cult-like mission has ruined the careers and endangered the lives of scores of innocent diplomats.
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Which brings me to the Lazarus-like news Assange is making today.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s three-and-a-half-year stay in the Ecuadorian embassy in London amounts to ‘unlawful detention’, a United Nations panel examining his appeal will rule on Friday…
Britain said it had never arbitrarily detained Assange and that the Australian had voluntarily avoided arrest by jumping bail to flee to the embassy.
It said Assange will be arrested if he leaves the embassy and then extradited to Sweden for questioning over allegations of rape in 2010.
(Reuters, February 4, 2016)
Trust me folks, this is much ado about nothing. Not least because the U.N. has no greater influence when it comes to Assange’s fate than it has when it comes to that of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
This, after all, is the same U.N. that ruled years ago that the United States is in breach of international law for holding prisoners there for years without charge or trial. Yet the Bush administration couldn’t care less. And the Obama administration has released a few of them not to comply with international law, but to improve America’s international reputation.
In fact, the only material difference between Bush and Obama on this issue is that the former wanted hard-core prisoners to serve indefinite time at Guantanamo Bay; the latter wants them to serve indefinite time at a supermax prison in the United States.
Meanwhile, Assange is complaining about all kinds of heart and lung complications from the lack of fresh air, sunlight, and exercise. This, without any hint of irony or responsibility — given that he had these luxuries when he was confined in a British prison. He was eventually granted bail, which he then jumped by seeking refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy. And here we are….
In any event, no matter his complaints, what I indicated four years ago remains the case today: There’s only one way Assange will ever leave his “Hotel California;” which is by deciding that he would have a better quality of life serving finite time in prison in Sweden and the United States than serving indefinite time in the Ecuadorian embassy.
And no amount of pleading can alter his fate – even if the person pleading is his celebrity lawyer Amal Alamuddin (aka Mrs. George Clooney).
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