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Assange Asylum Reveals Messed Up View of the US…or Does It?
Julian Assange, famed Wikileaks founder and the man wanted for questioning in Sweden for two separate claims of sexual assault, was granted asylum by the country of Ecuador on Thursday. Mr. Assange has been holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in the UK since June.
According to the BBC, Ecuador claims Mr. Assange’s human rights would be violated if he were extradited to Sweden for questioning. Of course Sweden immediately took issue with the Ecuadorian stance and responded angrily over the accusation that Mr. Assange would not be treated fairly.
The UK, however, will not be granting Assange free passage and the second he leaves the Embassy compound, his ass his grass.
Personally, I believe Mr. Assange is a vile, arrogant, detestable, corrupt human being, who in the name of his twisted view of “free speech” put lives in danger. And whether or not the crimes he is being accused of are founded in truth or not, I believe he should have to answer for them. But hey, that’s just me.
I began reading about the entire Assange SNAFU, when an article in the UK site The Guardian stood out like Joe Biden’s stupidity. The title and subtitle claimed the following: Julian Assange asylum: Ecuador is right to stand up to the US. The United States would paint itself as a promoter of human rights, but any right to make that claim is long gone.
At which point I immediately bowed up like a cat and defensively read on believing the author was fully off his rocker. The author, Mark Weisbrot who is co-director of the Centre for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, DC, takes issue with several of the facts including what he feels is a threat from the UK to storm the embassy and arrest Assange. Under international law, that is prohibited since the ground the Embassy is located on is considered part of that sovereign nation.
Bear with me on so much back story because I can’t believe how important this is. The article claims Sweden could have easily questioned Assange in the UK instead of the extradition. The big fear was being extradited back to the US to answer for the possible charge of espionage. The US, according to Weisbrot can no longer make a claim to upholding the conventions of human rights.
He cites the deaths of Vietnamese and Iraqis during US wars as evidence for our lack of support for human rights. And then he made this claim that stopped me dead in my tracks.
“At the same time, over the past decade, the US’s own human rights situation has deteriorated,” he writes. “The US claims the legal right to indefinitely detain its citizens; the president can order the assassination of a citizen without so much as even a hearing; the government can spy on its citizens without a court order; and its officials are immune from prosecution for war crimes.”
And he is correct.
We all know this anyway, but it’s shocking to see the extreme damage done to our basic human American rights. Our Government has taken over our lives.
And although I disagree with the vast majority of the article, there is no denying this portion. We have allowed the Government to rob us of our basic human rights to privacy and due process. The Government owns us. And that was never what our country was intended to be.
We protect those that are breaking the law, but we punish those who are attempting to defend it. I believe we are at one of the greatest turning points in American history. We can continue on this path of destruction or we can stop the bleeding and begin to reverse the damage. The choice is yours and you can make it in November.
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2012-08-21 21:11:54
