The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Julian Assange, Victim?

Posted on | December 19, 2010 | 15 Comments

The World’s Smallest Violin, playing “My Heart Bleeds for You”:

LAWYERS for Julian Assange have expressed anger about an alleged smear campaign against the Australian WikiLeaks founder.
Incriminating police files were published in the British newspaper that has used him as its source for hundreds of leaked US embassy cables.
In a move that surprised many of Mr Assange’s closest supporters on Saturday, The Guardian newspaper published previously unseen police documents that accused Mr Assange in graphic detail of sexually assaulting two Swedish women. One witness is said to have stated: “Not only had it been the world’s worst screw, it had also been violent.”
Bjorn Hurtig, Mr Assange’s Swedish lawyer, said he would lodge a formal complaint to the authorities and ask them to investigate how such sensitive police material leaked into the public domain. “It is with great concern that I hear about this because it puts Julian and his defence in a bad position,” he told a colleague.

(Wait — did you catch that? Leak documents that make the world’s most famous document-leaker look bad, and his lawyers demand an investigation!)

“I do not like the idea that Julian may be forced into a trial in the media. And I feel especially concerned that he will be presented with the evidence in his own language for the first time when reading the newspaper. I do not know who has given these documents to the media, but the purpose can only be one thing – trying to make Julian look bad.” . . .
Another supporter close to the WikiLeaks founder said the leak appeared designed by the authorities in Sweden to jeopardise Mr Assange’s defence. “There has been a selective smear through the disclosure of material. That material, in Swedish, was passed to a journalist at The Guardian,” a source said. “The timing appears to have been cynically calculated to have the material published in the middle of the bail application and the appeal.”

Irony? What irony?

(Via Memeorandum.)

UPDATE: Speaking of crazy, Amanda Marcotte:

RS McCain made it clear that he supports rapists as a vigilante force punishing women who are sexually liberated with men that aren’t RS McCain.

Sigh. I am extremely dubious of the concept of “sexual liberation.” From what, pray tell, are you being “liberated”?

“Sexual liberation” is one of those moldy leftovers from the 1960s — like “peace” — that some people seem incapable of examining with anything like the skepticism such glittering generalities deserve.

Cui bono? Who benefits from a regime of “sexual liberation,” and who suffers as a result? Given that some 40% of all babies in the U.S. are now born out of wedlock, and that unwed motherhood is closely correlated with child poverty, educational failure, etc., does Amanda Marcotte suppose that such consequences of “sexual liberation” represent some kind of Progress?

As for my alleged endorsement of rape as a “vigilante” measure, this is like saying I’m in favor of third-degree burns if I warn children not to play with fire.

Category: Sweden, WikiLeaks

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