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Both of Assange's accusers allegedly have similar accounts. They are said to report that what began as consensual sexual encounters became non-consensual, and therefore sexual assault (rape) when the condom broke (in one case) and when the Wikileaks founder stopped using a condom (in the other). I don't particularly LIKE Assange. He seems like a smarmy, self-satisfied, quite comfortable in his privileges gavacho. But I'd like to see a list (a very long list, I hope) of similar condom cases of regular non-prominent people that these same Swedish prosecutors have pursued in the past few years before feeling comfortable crediting this accusation. And while we're speaking of the prosecutors, in addition to the list of similar cases but not involving prominent people in the CIA's cross- hairs, I'd like to examine the prosecutor's bank accounts, retirement funds, etc., before saying it is Assange's private sexual conduct and not the wikileaks web site that he is really being prosecuted for. And, oh yeah, I'd like to see the bank account and so on of the women. Sorry. But this stinks more than the 300 plus aborted fetuses they found in a Thai Buddhist temple this week. I'd also need a minute-by-minute, blow by blow account of what the military attaches, CIA station chiefs, FBI representatives, Interpol agents, copyright extortionists (RIAA/MPAA) and other Yankee representatives have been up to in Sweden or in relation to Sweden in the last few months. Barring that, I'll say that I have close to zero doubt that the charges against Assange could very well be true. But I have less than zero doubt that this is a politically motivated frame-up. Still, I don't want to turn my back on the women. I was once in a situation where a woman changed her mind or got cold feet or however one might express it once we were in bed. Somehow she got me to stop. I can't say that I'm proud of that night, but in the end, she did get me to act with minimum decency. So I do not at all discount what the prosecution claims was the account of Assange's partners. Intimacy necessarily implies making oneself vulnerable to one's partner, and given social, biological and physical factors, the woman who decides to stop despite an insistent partner is in a tremendously weaker position than a man who makes a similar decision would be. (Obviously, I'm thinking here of heterosexual relationships as they were in the last third or fourth of the 20th Century.) Nor do I discount the legitimacy of a complaint that what one person thought would be a desirable partner suddenly became UNdesirable, for whatever reason, nor the legitimacy or seriousness of an accusation that this other partner refused to stop and forced himself on the unwilling person. I've been close enough to being that "unwilling to stop" partner, that rapist, to know that the accounts the Swedish prosecutors have put out are completely credible, and this type of charges is entirely legitimate. But at least from the bare-bones sketch of the complaints one sees in the press, this seems to be a case of she-said, he-said that would fall way short of a "beyond a reasonable doubt" or even a "preponderance of the evidence" standard. But if that is so --and assuming the account of the two women is completely truthful-- then the question arises, why are the Swedish prosecutors pursuing this case? It seems inherently unwinnable, if there is no corroborating evidence (for example, the women having been treated for having been assaulted within a day or two of the encounter, with bruises and so on) and if there were such evidence, I think we would have heard by now. So, ASSUMING the charges are true, they're almost certainly unprovable because they lack corroboration. Now, if the Swedish prosecutors have a record of bringing similar charges, despite being unwinnable, I'd be willing to suspend disbelief and suppose that the charges against Assange are NOT politically motivated. But absent that, I have to assume Swedish prosecutors, like those everywhere else, aren't into losing cases and therefore also not into presenting judicially unprovable charges, especially NOT in a case likely to garner public notice. For that reason, if they nevertheless DO bring such charges, one has to suspect an ulterior motive having nothing to do with Assange's bedroom manners. And in Assange's case, there just does happen to be such an ulterior motive, one so strong that Pentagon and Administration flacks regularly libel him as being a terrorist, or at least an accomplice, and at any rate a baby killer who eats them for breakfast. Joaquín ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
