The petulant bully

Yes, we have met them before. The bully screaming ‘Foul, foul!’ Often enough we are nice enough to ignore them, yet not this time. It was the BBC who brought me ‘WikiLeaks founder’s extradition appeal explained’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-59053803) The setting has two sides. In the first it is a legal stage that the US has, an appeal is a legal right to any party. Yet in opposition, there was clearly established that Julian Assange did not do an act of treason, there are laws in those days (much stronger ones) that gave him the optional status of distributor. For those interested in a history lesson lets jump back to the age of Grunge (1991).

“the first websites to be sued for defamation based on the statements of others argued that they were merely distributors, and not publishers, of the content on their sites. One of the first such cases was Cubby v. CompuServe, Inc., 776 F.Supp. 135 (S.D.N.Y. 1991). CompuServe provided subscribers with access to over 150 specialty electronic “forums” that were run by third parties. When CompuServe was sued over allegedly defamatory statements that appeared in the “Rumorville” forum, it argued that it should be treated like a distributor because it did not review the contents of the bulletin board before it appeared on CompuServe’s site. The court agreed and dismissed the case against CompuServe”

Wikileaks can rely on that stage as well (as can Julian Assange). In the second degree, let’s take a look at an actual traitor (nor Dirk Benedict). So in those days Bradley, now Chelsea Manning betrayed the service, handed classified materials to people who should not have them and as such Manning was sentenced to 35 years at the maximum-security U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth. Yet, then President Obama bowed to bleeding heart pinko’s and commuted the sentence after 7 years. Manning now gets speaking engagements whilst the US is still bleeding from the acts of Manning 12 years ago. As such, Julian Assange spend twice the amount in seclusion and imprisonment that Manning, an actual traitor did. 

Am I happy? No! Assange and Wikileaks did something stupid and massively dangerous, especially the diplomatic cables, it screwed up US interests on a near global scale. Yes, they lied, yet so does the bulk of all other governments (they call it denial), as such the US will be playing with a loaded deck for several more years to come. We can go into some deep version of she dais, she said but that is no progress. The critical stage is that the traitor got off (in more than one way) and for years the US government hunted and haunted Julian Assange and they keep on continuing to do so. As I personally see it it makes the US a petulant bully. Let’s not forget that they are entitled to do so, yet in all this what will it bring them? There would be a minimal case if Manning was still in Leavenworth, but that is not the case is it?

And to rely on the courts having a right to their day is also fake. Consider all the cases where the courts never had a chance (Epstein anyone?) and that happened all in the US of A. We cannot tell how the appeal will go and I do not have the legal insight for this, but there will be a lot of eyes on this case, not in the first for all those fearing extradition to the US, this appeal is important to the US too, I get that. Yet the reason behind it is no longer the larger limelight, especially as the traitor behind this was released years ago and is making a living (as I personally see it) in questionable ways. I always wanted to be the IT intelligence guy, they gave it to some traitor, two actually when you consider Edward Snowden, he at least had the common decency to defect to Russia.