Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
WikiLeaks' Assange Hits Out at 'Rape Smears'
Julian Assange's supporters are quick to point the finger at American intelligence agencies and say they were expecting slurs after he posted 77,000 Afghanistan war documents online.
Julian Assange, the secretive founder of WikiLeaks, the website behind the biggest leak of US military documents in history, was the subject of conspiracy theories last night after prosecutors withdrew a warrant for his arrest in connection with rape and molestation allegations.
"It seems an unusual time to embark on a career of multiple rape," said Guardian journalist David Leigh, who has worked closely with Assange over the recent WikiLeaks Afghanistan documents. Photograph: Linda Nylind/Guardian On Friday a spokeswoman for the Swedish prosecutors' office in Stockholm confirmed an arrest warrant for Assange had been issued in absentia and urged him to "contact police so that he can be confronted with the suspicions".
According to Expressen, a Swedish newspaper, the 39-year-old Australian had been wanted in connection with two separate incidents. The first involved a woman from Stockholm who reportedly accused him of "molestation". The second involved a woman from Enköping, about an hour's drive west from Stockholm, who had apparently accused Assange of rape. The warrant was withdrawn yesterday afternoon.
Assange claimed he was the victim of a smear campaign. He denied the charges on WikiLeaks's Twitter page, saying they were "without basis and their issue at this moment is deeply disturbing".
It is believed that Assange, who has no known address and spends much of his time travelling to ensure a low profile, knew both women well. The pair had been reluctant to go to the police with their complaints, according to sources in Sweden. But the news that Swedish police were investigating the affair was leaked to Expressen, prompting further claims that a smear campaign had been orchestrated by foreign interests keen to discredit him.
Gavin MacFadyen, director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism, and a friend of Assange, said: "A lot of us who had any notion of what he was doing expected this sort of thing to happen at least a week ago. I'm amazed it has taken them this long to get it together. This is how smears work. The charges are made and then withdrawn and the damage is done."
WikiLeaks has courted controversy since July when it posted 77,000 Afghan War documents online, leading to claims it had put the lives of troops and security sources at risk.
Assange had been in Sweden, home to some of WikiLeaks's internet servers, to oversee the release of thousands more classified documents relating to US military operations.
Last week he announced at a press conference in Stockholm that his website was set to publish a final batch of 15,000 documents on the war in Afghanistan in "a couple of weeks".
"It seems an unusual time to embark on a career of multiple rape," said Guardian journalist David Leigh, who has worked closely with Assange over the recent WikiLeaks Afghanistan documents. "He certainly didn't come across as a violent man, not in the least. Julian was clearly preparing to release more sensitive documents."
There had been speculation that Assange's arrest would prompt WikiLeaks to post a secret code that would decrypt a massive "insurance file" on its site, the contents of which are the subject of frenzied speculation. The file dwarfs the size of all the other files on the WikiLeaks Afghanistan page combined, prompting claims that it contains a huge amount of top-secret material. But sceptics believe the file is simply an elaborate bluff and contains nothing revelatory.
Kristinn Hrafnsson, a colleague, of Assange's, said he had not known of the charges "until he read them in the rightwing tabloid Expressen". Hrafnsson said: "There are powerful organisations who want to do harm to WikiLeaks."
Last week Assange claimed the Pentagon was ready to talk to WikiLeaks about its unreleased documents. "We received contact through our lawyers that the General Counsel [of the Pentagon] says now they want to discuss the issue," he said.
A Pentagon spokesman said a phone call had been arranged with the WikiLeaks lawyer but no conversation had taken place. He denied the Pentagon was willing to co-operate with WikiLeaks. "These documents are property of the United States government," he said. "The unauthorised release of them threatens the lives of coalition forces as well as Afghan nationals."
Yesterday the Wall Street Journal claimed both the US Defence and Justice departments were exploring legal options for prosecuting Assange and others on grounds that they encouraged the theft of government property.
- Posted in
58 Comments so far
Show All"The unauthorised release of them threatens the lives of coalition forces as well as Afghan nationals."
the illegal deployment of said forces is what truly endangers lives and has already ended or irreparably ruined many.
Very well put!
Indeed!
Word.
"Theft of Government Property" is what bothers me........From the Kennedy Assassination documents that have been withheld for "National Security Reasons" to "Able Danger Group Documents" that were destroyed, a fallacy exists that those documents belong to government.....all documents belong to The People of The United States. The government should be forced to release all documents since the Invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were based off of lies!
You are correct sir. Any assertion that anything belongs to the "Government of the United States" is absurd. Any government in that country is there specifically to serve the citizens within the nation or other governing entities. Anything in physical possession of those governing entities belong to the people they govern. That goes for the administrators of the City of Bell, California, the US Department of Defense, or the US CIA.
Come on. This is the most cleaver lie developed. The Founding Fathers knew that if they came out and said after the revolution that they owned the government as a new royalty, the guns would have pointed their way, immediately.
So they came up with a brilliant fiction that the people are sovereign and that they own the government. Then they wrote this fiction into law. And the people bought it.
But, we know who owns the government, and it ain't the people, is it?
We see that even Jefferson, the most ethical of the founders was a classic elite liar. He promised his slaves freedom upon his death, yet upon his death his slaves were sold to pay his debts. Sorry, but he had to uphold his honor to his class.
The ruling elite were liars from the beginning. And nothing has changed. And the people still buy this crap from the owners.
Your point regarding Jefferson is confusing. Are you castigating him for selling his slaves after he was in his grave?
>>These documents are property of the United States government," he said. "The unauthorised release of them threatens the lives of coalition forces as well as Afghan nationals."
Afghanistan belongs to the people of Afghanistan. The unauthorized invasion of that land threatens the lives of Afghan Civilians, Soldiers and Coalition troops,
>>Yesterday the Wall Street Journal claimed both the US Defence and Justice departments were exploring legal options for prosecuting Assange and others on grounds that they encouraged the theft of government property.
The "Justice System" at work. Bush and Cheney walk free while they go after the people that expose those crimes.
How about the crime of "encouraging war" based on lies and fabrications? How about authorizing torture?
Those that ORDER torture get the pass and those that reveal it are criminals?
If the documents are the property of the U.S. government, and the government is "of, by, and for the people," (I know, I know, stop laughing...), then all U.S. citizens should all be able to view them. Hence, WikiLeaks should be paid by the U.S. government as a contractor providing a public service!
Mr. Assange! Send the U.S. an invoice! I'll gladly pay my taxes to further the mission of WikiLeaks!
Obama/Holder co-conspirators after the fact! Running an on going criminal enterprise!
"J Edgar Hoover"
Hoover? Oh yeah, I remember him. His friends used to call him Mary.
Is it true that when he ran the FBI, he used to make all the agents shave their legs?
LOL -- no, I think it was just J. Headgear and his live-in pal Clyde Tolson who had to shave.
hoover sucked.
vdb, what Hoover did in his private life is his business, and it's immaterial whether he was gay. It became our business when he used the FBI to advance his personal political agenda, such as trying to force Martin Luther King Jr. into committing suicide because he had supposedly had some adulterous affairs, and harrassing leftists who had committed no crime except exercising their freedom of speech and freedom to assemble to protest governmental actions. He was also a major covert figure in destroying the lives of thousands of people during the blacklisting of the HUAC-McCarthy era, as well as promoting the career of Richard Nixon.
A possibly apocryphal story I heard was that Hoover lived in fear that a charismatic political figure would emerge who would unite poor whites and blacks. King was starting to become such a figure when assassinated in 1968; JFK and RFK definitely fit that description; and even the articulate Malcolm X, after splitting from the Black Muslim Nation, was beginning to form an organization that included people of all colors. Hoover realized that a major political figure with a large bloc of voters, or a president with such support, would fire him from his fiefdom at the FBI. He was also said to be a virulent racist.
Another interesting story I can't prove is that Hoover refrained from pursuing the Mafia for so long because mob boss Frank Costello had pictures of him indulging in homosexual activity. Whether that story is true or not, Hoover denied the existence of organized crime long after everyone else in law enforcement and the general public knew it existed. It's also said. BTW, that Hoover and Tolson visited New York once a month where they were treated to dinner at luxurious restaurants by Costello, and Frank even gave J. Edgar winning tips at the horse races.
The father of a friend of mine was an FBI agent during Hoover's reign of terror -- the 'good kind' who actually went after criminals rather than protestors -- and he privately loathed Hoover. He wasn't alone, but if you spoke up against Hoover you'd not only lose your job at the FBI, you'd be blacklisted and harrassed and wouldn't be able to work anywhere. That's how much power this unelected little dictator had, and he's the spiritual grandfather of such modern smear merchants as Karl Rove.
in other words, he sucked.
(my reference was but obliquely aimed at his private life - it was mostly intended to compare him to to the vacuum cleaner of the same name.)
That's actually a pretty witty joke, vdb -- too bad for me I didn't make the connection orginally. (Duh.)
Truth is stranger than fiction. Kinda like the Pat Tillman story.
Assange is a hero because he is a threat to the status quo and puts himself in great peril to fight for what is right.
Reagan's puppeteer said, in essence, "that government of the people, by the corporate bodies, for the corporate bodies shall not perish from the earth.
It hasn't, but millions of humans have perished.
"I'm amazed it has taken them this long to get it together."
No, I'd be amazed if they didn't have him on a government hit list. Based on the knowledge that the US government has no compunction about killing people it feels is a threat I'd even venture to say he might be a 'marked man'.
They only thing thats keeping them back is not knowing what other docs he has and what's involved with this 'Insurance' file.
Mysterious plane crash anyone?
Predator drone, for that matter.....
Hopefully nobody is planning on inviting Julian to their wedding.....
gnken
I wouldn't be surprised of a mysterious plan crash. Remember the late Senator Paul Wellstone?
"No, I'd be amazed if they didn't have him on a government hit list."
More than likely, the thugs who work for Mr. Hopey-Changey would like to arrange simultaneous "accidents" for everyone in the Wikileaks group to prevent the password for the insurance file being leaked. I'm so glad we replaced Bush and now have an open, honest government we can trust.
I say a fall from the tenth story balcony at the hotel. Plane crashes or so yesterday.
A good, old-fashioned drug overdose probably wouldn't attract much attention, especially if loads of pills were found in his hotel room.
Indeed. This is a classic case by the U.S. government of obfuscating the issue by shooting the messenger though unfortunately in this instance it would not be too surprising to see a shadowy organization like the CIA actually attempt to do harm to Assange.
"When old enemies disappear, mellow or turn into allies, as frequently happens in international relations, new enemies must be found and new threats must be discovered. The failure to replenish the supply of enemies is the supreme threat facing any national security bureaucracy."-Richard Barnet [1929-2004], American scholar and activist
The current administration promised 'transparency'. Well, they certainly are VERY transparent.
Touche!
"It is believed that Assange, who has no known address and spends much of his time travelling to ensure a low profile, knew both women well."
This is coming from the Guardian, and so I would tend to accept it's veracity. I find it difficult to imagine that someone who knows another well in what I assume is a voluntary social relationship would make such allegations. There is a lot more than meets the eye here, and I am curious to know what the real circumstances of the unfolding events were. Who, if anybody, effected the behavior of the complainants and was there money or some form of pressure involved?
Just because it is coming from the Guardian does not make it true. Not least because the Guardian does not state how they know that Assange knows both women well. They don't even provide a vague attribution. The Guardian's foreign policy / international relations worldview has a tendency to be neo-liberal / neo con. Their foreign policy assistant editor and most regular foreign policy / IR columnist Simon Tisdall, is very much a Blairite type neo-liberal / neo-con.
Note, I'm not saying that it isn't true, just that for the moment, there is too little information to come to any kind of conclusions.
All that it would indicate is that the smearing party investigated Assange and then used the names of people he knew for the smear.
Is there any evidence that the supposed accusers were involved in any way with the charges or were the charges just made up out of thin air and Assange's friend's names used to make them look more possible?
"I find it difficult to imagine that someone who knows another well in what I assume is a voluntary social relationship would make such allegations."
It depends on how much money is on the table, or what threats were made.
Although I have seen the Guardian do good things, the internal evidence that your trust is misplaced is very strong:
"It is believed that Assange, who has no known address and spends much of his time travelling to ensure a low profile, knew both women well."
It is believed by whom? The Guardian's diction tempts one to think that this is a matter of general belief: most people or most people involved or most of those who have some reason to be cited as authorities believe that A knew the women, But in this case there is no general bank of belief to have been built: the circus has just opened and the clowns have just taken the stage. And who would be an authority? Surely it is not Assange who believes he knows the women, or the women who believe they might be known. So this is either the US agency that has invented the charges or the Swedish agency that complied, or someone responding to the rumor from both.
Then, look at the licentiousness of the chosen information. The sentence couples Assange's mobility, which we might reasonably assume has something to do with escaping government reprisals, with his supposed relations with two women. The composite image is this mysterious man who comes and goes, knows or makes himself known to these women, but not to public scrutiny. Then we are told that perhaps the women have long wanted to report his predations, but withheld the information for some reason. What could that be? Fear of the suddenly mysterious Assange, mysterious although you and I manage to write about him? Fear of publicity? However, despite the supposed high probability of whatever this motive might have been, despite its being intense enough to prevent a woman from crying rape, the women have gotten the whole event out of their systems quickly enough to withdraw the charges. Why would that be?
No, I think we may in this case conclude straightforwardly: The Guardian is colluding with an attempt at character assassination probably though not certainly hatched in the US shadow government and executed with the help, conceivably unwitting, of Swedish law enforcement. Further, the accusatory tone of the Guardian in a story in which all evidence points to false accusation strongly suggests that the Guardian is deliberatly complicit
Perhaps because Assange has scooped them.
"These documents are property of the United States government"
Information is not property according to the people and if it were then the documents are property of the people, who are very likely to approve of public dissemination.
"Yesterday the Wall Street Journal claimed both the US Defence and Justice departments were exploring legal options for prosecuting Assange and others on grounds that they encouraged the theft of government property."
Encouraging theft? Look who's talking. Hasn't the elites' basic policy all these decades been to inflame mass envy to drive the people in the rat race to consume ever more material crapola? That and related phenomena such as the elites' gilded class divide are why the USA has the highest crime rate on the planet.
A good example of American exceptionalism. Not sure why everyone thinks some secretive US agency is behind this. If you go the the wikileaks site (I guess very few actually do) they have hundreds of leaked documents from several countries and private enterprises. It could have any been any one of these that might want to have Wikileaks embarrassed. The whole thing looks pretty amateurish so i really doubt some serious agency is behind it.
Scott Ritter, one time CIA agent and Iraq War whistleblower was hounded by allegations of internet luring of underage girls. In each and every case, it turns out that the charges were the result of an FBI sting operation with the intent of imprisoning Mr. Ritter.
Speak the truth, go to jail.
Welcome to Amerika.
Non Serviam - I will not serve.
Not each and every case...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Ritter
The original source for all of this is the right-wing tabloid 'Espressen,' according to one of Assange's colleagues. It sounds like 'Espressen' is probably as reliable as the 'Weekly World News' and, regardless of the fact that the investigation has been dropped, I think you'll hear Beck and Limbaugh beating this empty drum as if he had been convicted, speaking of unreliable 'news' sources.
Julian, I am an American Patriot and I say to you, please release ALL you have.
Thank you for being a World Patriot!!!
I agree. He has nothing to talk about with these ostensible leaders who hide in the shadows and come out only to smile for the cameras.
Wikileaks is wise to keep some material as "insurance". I've heard that the material is enough to make all the pigs in Washington and London squeel for months.
Julian Assange will be made "MAN OF THE YEAR" in 2010.
I still wonder if he has a hidden agenda, and if the "rape smears" was really designed to make lose credibility--or win some.
This is exactly the sort of thing they did to people in the BPP and civil rights movement during COINTELPRO.
Where are the courts & prosecutors who will charge the US military with WAR CRIMES and crimes against humanity?! Who committed the crime of trying to cover up these crimes?
We all know that the video of War Crimes and McCord's eyewitness testimony at http://collateralmurder.com/ is real, not fiction. How can our so called system of justice ignore that?!
No Justice = No Peace
Didn't LBJ say something like: "The way to destroy a political enemy is to call him a scum-sucking pig, and make him deny it." Jest bidness.
So, if Assange wanted to expose the Pentagon's illegal doings, why is he letting the Pentagon see the documents before he releases them?
In an interview with Amy Goodman, Assange stated the the Pentagon would view the docs prior to their release to check security issues...making sure that the troops' safety is not being compromised.
I understand that point, but then what is the point of releasing the documents? They still will infuriate people who have access to the internet.
to me, this whole wikileaks thing smells funny...
I don't know Assange from Adam, but he is making his choices, and photos, from outside the system, and is intimately familiar with his situation and opposition...
my heart goes out to young Mr. Manning...he made his choice from inside...
leaks are important, to a point, but they are not physical attacks...
no civilian or military court will check current course, even if clearly murderous...
congress? ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
like the day the cops ever protect the protesters...