I used to agree when people would say things like you just said. It sounds so reasonable.
Honestly, if you had NSA-level ethics, and wanted to discredit Assange, how would you do it?
Honestly, if you had NSA-level ethics, and wanted to discredit Assange, how would you do it?
But, it's also plausible that Assange is an abusive asshole. Given the circumstances, and the story of the women involved, I'm inclined to believe he's an asshole more than I'm inclined to believe the NSA planted two women into the circle of people supporting him in Sweden. I strongly suspect something would have come out by now to give us some indication if that were true.
I've been involved in activist groups. Including some that have been infiltrated by local, state, and federal agents. It tends to come out. There tend to be clues. It may take years (and we may still find out at some point that these women really were honeypots set by some government), but it usually does reveal itself. It's difficult to maintain a completely artificial life and story for a long period of time. I know that cops, feds, spooks, will do horrible thing...but, there are limits to what they can do without being found out.
Is this one of those cases? I don't know for sure. But, I'm inclined to say no. I could be wrong.
Anyway the whole case is really fishy if you look into it, whether they were bribed or not. One of the women (the one with the dildo shoes), for example, actually blogged about accusing men of rape as a valid way of getting back at them. Does that seem legit to you?
So it seems like it wasn't an NSA plant, but rather, a case of a politicized investigation over a narcissist sleeping with two adoring fans, tinged by Swedish institutional feminism, which the US then ran with. We already know the US has wound Sweden around its fingers.
Ardin described a method for revenge against an ex on her blog prior to the Assange case that was very similar to the events in questions. It seems quite possible to me that the two women both were angry after finding out he had sex with both of them, and decided to teach him a lesson, and that it went too far.
Especially given that one of the women have categorically refused to sign the police interview report and refused to have anything further to do with the police after she learned the police was pursuing a rape investigation, and that neither woman alleged rape when they approached the police. Exactly as Ardin had previously described on her blog, they "just" described events to the police that were sufficiently ambiguous to get the police to start an investigation. An investigation that was closed until a prosecutor with a long time political agenda of massively tightening Swedish rape laws got hold of it.
Couple that with Assange acting like quite the asshole and being paranoid about the US, and it was all set for plenty of drama.
You're particularly far off base given that I explicitly point out I don't believe it's a conspiracy at all, rather raise the possibility that it might amount to an unfortunate combination of the motivations of two separate parties that I explicitly don't believe have been conspiring.
I also most certainly believe Assange did act like an asshole in - we can conclude that from what he has not disputed. It's even possible he did commit rape.
But we don't know.
And those possibilities those not negate the other things I wrote.
What we do know is that there's no open and shut rape case here, but some statements that may or may not amount to allegations of sexual assault and/or rape - the statements that have been published during the extradition hearing have not been contested in a court (the UK extradition hearings are conducted on the basis of whether or not there is a case to answer assuming the prosecutions statements are true, not whether or not the prosecutions representation is correct).
In terms of the case in Sweden, there have been (substantiated) allegations of police misconduct, prosecutorial misconduct; statements were provably illegally leaked to the press by police; at least one of the women have not signed statements and have refused to deal with the case after the new prosecutor took over. All of which puts us in a situation where we have a highly unusual case, with several we might likely never know one way or the other without a trial.
So forgive me for stepping on your sensibilities for not being prepared to just automatically assume guilt for someone who has not yet even been charged, in a case where the first prosecutor claimed there were no indications a crime had occurred, and where just what we do know about the case includes a laundry list of violations of police procedures, violations of Swedish law (on behalf of at least one police officer or prosecutor), and outright lies from the current prosecutor.
Clearly having an opinion based on what is known about this specific case must mean those of us who not automatically assume Assange is guilty must be trying to deny that rape ever happens.