Assange Extradition

Experts quoted by British media are convinced Julian Assange will be extradited to Sweden in a dubious sexual assault case. Normally this paragraph would have said to face charges, but none have been filed.

After several appeals of a lower court decision to grant extradition failed the case went before the U.K. Supreme Court on Wednesday. The hearing is scheduled to be completed after two days.

A decision would be released later, though no time has been set.

Assange could take the case to the European Court of Human Rights if he loses.

The British experts quoted by the Guardian and others say to not extradite Assange would bring down the entire European justice system. 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2011/feb/23/julian-assange-extradition-law

And well it might, but not necessarily for the reason they give. Most countries around the world have set up restrictions on extradition to prevent a political refugee from being dragged back to a dictatorship that will harm him, and deny a fair trial.

 An extradition of Assange could result in a disastrous precedent  for the European Union by making it possible for extradition requests without the approval of anyone outside the prosecutor’s office.

The process of extradition varies from country to country but a judge usually must approve, or even a high-ranking executive such as a state governor in the U.S.  For instance, A prosecutor may not order an extradition in Britain. Instead, he/she would only begin the process.

In the U.S.,  an extradition would require that a charge had been filed.
To refer to such restrictions as technicalities is to demean the law. Both Britain and Sweden likely will be embarrassed.

So far, more questions have been raised than answered. It is widely believed the extradition is meant to keep relations between the CIA and Swedish intelligence agency cordial.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bGxRDEojjAuWJsUB1Ld8L-BA2vDFDWLdxEsJFafdzPM/edit?pli=1&hl=en_US

http://justice4assange.com/Rule-of-Law.html

Honor Of U.S. Military Plummets To New Low

When the four Marines urinated on the corpses of Taliban insurgents they might as well have been emptying their bladders on the honor of the U.S. military.

As occurred in the Roman Empire, and was predicted here, replacing the draft with mercenaries has been followed with one case after another of America’s proud tradition being stained.

Now, at virtually the same time the Marines were caught on YouTube. Bradley Manning has been recommended for a court martial.

Eighteen months after he was arrested, flouting his right to a speedy trial, a military judge has recommended he be court-martialed for his alleged role in leaking classified documents.

His denial of habeaus corpus alone is more than enough to dismiss the charges. Word is, no definitive answer is available, that because Manning wanted to meet with his lawyer before going to trial he was deemed to have given up his right to a speedy trial.

At the kangaroo court, definition "a mock court in which the principles of law and justice are disregarded or perverted".

 “The outcome of a trial by kangaroo court is essentially determined in advance, usually for the purpose of ensuring conviction, either by going through the motions of manipulated procedure or by allowing no defense at all.”

The vast majority of his defense witnesses were blocked from appearing: only two were allowed.

What purpose does this serve. Primarily it obfuscates accountability.

The only thing proved in the Article 32 was that Manning gave more than enough warning that he should never have been near classified documents or in a war zone.

Just like the officers who escaped punishment for a crime spree outside Fort Carson in 2009 when at one point officers returning from the wars were charged in at least 11 murders, the guilty are allowed to fade into obscurity.

Many were suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. If ever the Army suffered a split personality this was it. While generals asked reporters to help them deal with it, lower-ranking officers whispered in their ears that the PTSD victims were just cowards trying to get out of fighting.

Even an Army psychiatrist was able to kill 11 and wound 31 at Fort Hood.

Does it take a Sherlock Holmes to identify these tsunamis as they approached?

Witnessing the Army not holding officers responsible at Fort Carson, I asked the army surgeon general why. He said something like this is not the time. “If not now, when,” I said in reply quoting Holocaust writer Primo Levi.

As an Air Force brat I grew up in the lower middle class. My late mother was stunned to see bonuses of $10,000 and more enabling soldiers to drive BMVs. She also wondered if the civilian guards at Ft. Leavenworth would take a bullet for their country. We both knew they would deliver one.

Most of the socalled war crimes trials have ended with slaps on the wrist, with the exception of a handful that were just to big to hide.

But Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld didn’t dare call for a draft for a phony war meant to assuage the President’s ego and enrich Cheney’s business partners.

The story of Rome’s fall is attributed by some historians to the decision to use their wealth to employ mercenaries. Their draft had been much harder than America’s, which often relied on lower incrome troops. In Rome, only landowners could be in the Army. And they had to come when called, bring their own weapons, and stay until victory.

If the mercenary Army was such a good job why so many suicides. Why so much PTSD. Most never expected to be doing revolving tours deploying against guerrillas who followed no rules.

Manning reported things, by leaking them, that in some cases he had an obligation to report because they were violations of the rules of engagement, even war crimes.
What has been forgotten here is that, to quote from the film "The Debt," we must remember who we are and who we are not.

Could History Label Bradley Manning A Hero

As the pre-trial of Pvt. Bradley Manning gets more complicated, it seems to increase the possibility he could be the American version of Neil Aggett of South Africa and/or the Alfred Dreyfus of France.

The Dreyfus story is already well known. The world should know about Dr. Aggett,  a white who joined in the anti-apartheid campaign and died in prison. Security police claimed he hanged himself.

His family, friends and activists, and one fellow prisoner, said he probably died from torture. He was the 51^st campaigner to die in detention, but the first white in almost 20 years. The “best guess” for his death is Feb. 5, 1982.

I will never forget his funeral. The death of this white do-gooder stunned the country. An Afrikaans newspaper published my interview with his family.

Fifteen thousand turned out for his funeral.  I remember calling the bureau astonished that police stood back and let them march. It may have been the straw, or one of the straws, that broke apartheid’s back.

At this stage, Manning is finally in a court, after 17 months of imprisonment, much of it in solitary, a brief portion forced to sleep naked.

This denies him his constitutional right to a speedy trial. In general civilians must be tried within six months unless they request delays or the prosecution needs a witness who is not available. The U.S. Supreme Court has set no time limit but precedent holds that if the right is denied the only remedy is dismissal of charges with or without prejudice. A delay of more than a year has been ruled prejudicial in some cases.

For it to take this long, and for so much of the early days to focus on Manning’s apparent cross-sexual tendencies makes it appear more like the case is about a military RuPaul than treason.

His right to not be punished before trial, violates the Uniform Military Code of Justice. Solitary confinement for lengthy periods is clearly punishment, some experts say torture.

It has led to torture in many cases. Aggett only made it through 70 days. French resistance leader Jean Moulin twice tried to kill himself to avoid talking to Nazi Klaus Barbie, and apparently succeeded the second time.

It also should be noted that it is now widely accepted Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Even if it had war crimes would remain war crimes. Whatever Manning did was because he felt war crimes had been committed.

Just following orders has not been accepted since the Nuremburg Trials. We led them.