UK thugs threaten war on Ecuador to kidnap Assange

BREAKING NEWS: AUG 16, 2012 at 00:15 EST - The U.K. government has threatened to enter the Ecuadorian embassy in London and arrest WikiLeaders founder Julian Assange, who is seeking political asylum there. Reporters and Occupy London members on the scene are reporting the arrival of 3 police vans with 12 officers in each van who appear to be surrounding the Embassy.

Occupy London is providing on and off again video feeds and Occupy Wall Street became involved shortly after police vans arrived tweeting “ANNOUNCEMENT: #Assange supporters are calling for an occupation at #Ecuador’s Embassy in #London RIGHT NOW”.

"Today we have received from the United Kingdom an explicit threat in writing that they could assault our embassy in London if Ecuador does not hand over Julian Assange,” said Ecuador's foreign minister, Ricardo Patiño, at a news conference in Quito, adding defiantly, “We are not a British colony.”

“You need to be aware that there is a legal base in the UK, the Diplomatic and Consular Premises Act 1987, that would allow us to take actions in order to arrest Mr Assange in the current premises of the embassy.

We sincerely hope that we do not reach that point, but if you are not capable of resolving this matter of Mr Assange’s presence in your premises, this is an open option for us.

We need to reiterate that we consider the continued use of the diplomatic premises in this way incompatible with the Vienna Convention and unsustainable and we have made clear the serious implications that this has for our diplomatic relations.”

Progurt wrote:Bear in mind that this is not the Bush Administration pushing for the extradition of Assange, it is the Obama Administration. I'm sure there's plenty of corporate parasites in the military industry who'd love to see him dead, and plenty of banking industry thugs who remember things Wikileaks has posted on them, and between them these groups completely own both political parties in our government.

Oh…and the “rape” charge that’s smeared Julian Assange’s name around the world? On Thursday James D. Catlin, the Melbourne barrister who represented Assange in London, wrote:

Apparently having consensual sex in Sweden without a condom is punishable by a term of imprisonment of a minimum of two years for rape. That is the basis for a reinstitution of rape charges against WikiLeaks figurehead Julian Assange that is destined to make Sweden and its justice system the laughing stock of the world and dramatically damage its reputation as a model of modernity.

Sweden’s Public Prosecutor’s Office was embarrassed in August this year when it leaked to the media that it was seeking to arrest Assange for rape, then on the same day withdrew the arrest warrant because in its own words there was “no evidence”. The damage to Assange’s reputation is incalculable. More than three quarters of internet references to his name refer to rape. Now, three months on and three prosecutors later, the Swedes seem to be clear on their basis to proceed. Consensual sex that started out with a condom ended up without one, ergo, the sex was not consensual.

I’ve spent much of my professional life as a psychiatrist helping women (and men) who are survivors of sexual violence. Rape is a hideous crime. Yet in Assange’s case his alleged victim – the gender equity officer at Uppsala University – chose to throw a party for her alleged assailant – after they’d had the sex that even Swedish prosecutors concede was consensual. Barrister Caitlin again:

[The] phenomena of social networking through the internet and mobile phones constrains Swedish authorities from augmenting the evidence against Assange because it would look even less credible in the face of tweets by Anna Ardin and SMS texts by Sofia Wilén boasting of their respective conquests after the “crimes”.

In the case of Ardin it is clear that she has thrown a party in Assange’s honour at her flat after the “crime” and tweeted to her followers that she is with the “the world’s coolest smartest people, it’s amazing!”. Go on the internet and see for yourself. That Ardin has sought unsuccessfully to delete these exculpatory tweets from the public record should be a matter of grave concern. That she has published on the internet a guide on how to get revenge on cheating boyfriends ever graver. The exact content of Wilén’s mobile phone texts is not yet known but their bragging and exculpatory character has been confirmed by Swedish prosecutors. Neither Wilén’s nor Ardin’s texts complain of rape.

Small world, isn’t it? Julian Assange is the human face of Wikileaks – the organization that’s enabled whistle-blowers to reveal hideous war crimes and expose much of America’s foreign policy to the world.

He just happens to meet a Swedish woman who just happens to have been publishing her work in a well-funded anti-Castro group that just happens to have links with a group led by a man at least one journalist describes as an agent of the CIA: the violent secret arm of America’s foreign policy.

And she just happens to have been expelled from Cuba, which just happens to be the global symbol of successful defiance of American foreign policy.

And – despite her work in Sweden upholding the human right of gender equity – in Cuba she just happens to end up associating with a group openly supported by an admitted CIA agent who himself committed mass murder when he actively participated in the terrorist bombing of a jetliner carrying a Cuban sports team…an act that was of a piece with America’s secret foreign policy of violent attacks against Cuban state interests.

And now she just happens – after admittedly consensual sex – to have gone to Swedish authorities to report the sex ended without a condom…which just happens to be the pretext for Interpol to issue a “Red Notice” informing the world’s police forces of charges against Julian Assange.

Who just happens to be the man America’s political class – the people who run America’s foreign policy – have been trying to silence. And who happens to be the man some of them have been calling to have murdered.

With a lust for vengeance like that, one could be forgiven for concluding they’ve just happened to have taken a page from Anna’s revenge manual.