Julian Assange pleads guilty, leaves courtroom a free man
Now, about that bill for the private jet that's taking him home to Australia …
Security
26 Jun 2024 | 201
Tip of the iceberg
There is a lot here we don't know.
Are we supposed to believe that someone smart enough to uncover evidence of industrial-scale human rights abuses is not smart enough to watch where he dips his wick, for crying out loud? If you're carrying information that could bring down a powerful government, the last thing you want to do is take stupid risks like having casual sex with strangers, even if your reasons are more selfish i.e. not wanting to risk getting yourself into trouble with the law or trapped in a room with a murderer, as opposed to not actually wanting anybody else to suffer. Unless you believe that the information that you are carrying makes you worth protecting. Then you might be tempted to see if you could get away with a crime; but even so, there are classier crimes, ones more likely to endear you to the public, than rape. Art or jewel theft, for instance, if done with no harm to life, tend to court a good measure of public sympathy for the thief; since the original owner was obviously just showing off their wealth, and everyone loves a Robin Hood character. Even shoplifting a bottle of vodka from a supermarket is mostly going to inspire pity, as opposed to outright revulsion.
On the other hand, if you're in bed with someone who knows something you're desperate to conceal, why not just kill him there and then? That would have made every James Bond film a fair bit shorter. Get into a Cowgirl position, then stab him straight through the heart with a dagger, right in the middle of the vinegar strokes. Job's a good 'un. Your bosses can deal with the clean-up. But once the target is dead and the secret isn't coming out, that makes you expendable ..... So maybe you can use the target, alive, to your own advantage and double-cross your employers? Convince him that you're his only hope, half the money is better than being dead and the only way he can get that is by trusting you? If I'm going to kill you, I will do so whether or not you trust me. But if you don't let me help you, I can't stop anyone else from killing you. So have we got a deal?
Is the timing significant? Invading an embassy to take a prisoner, even one wanted for rape, has the potential to start an International Incident. Waiting until the last minute before the UK would have provoked another International Incident by crashing out of the EU without a deal suggests someone might have been hoping for one lot of events to divert attention from the other lot of events. And if the UK could no longer practice Extraordinary Rendition from anywhere in the EU, our usefulness internationally would be diminished.
Have multiple, over-complicated plots failed at once?
Of course, the most boring explanation is that what Julian Assange actually knew was not really worth very much; but he was arrogant enough to assume that it made him invulnerable, and tried to prove it by getting away with rape. But of course, that is exactly what They want you to think .....
Biting the hand that feeds IT
