Posts by HORansome
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Meanwhile, over at Kiwiblog, DPF says:
Without being overly conspirational, I wonder if he will be still alive in 12 months time? Pissing off almost every country on Earth isn’t the best of ideas possibly.
I suppose by saying "Without being overly conspirational..." DPF might be concerned that Assange might suffer a stroke, brought on the stress of dealing with media attention, et al, but really, saying "Without being overly conspirational..." almost always precedes a conspiracy theory.[1]
1. Actually, saying "Without being overly conspirational..." can make anything you say subsequently sound like it relates to a major and secret plot being committed by a cabal of co-conspirators out to achieve some end. For example:
"Without being overly conspirational, my child will be late to school this morning due to a doctor's visit," and
"Without being overly conspirational, I love you."
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Yeah, let's not forget that things that look conspiratorial sometimes are not conspiratorial at all.
Is Assange its victim? I have no idea. But it’s certainly not an unreasonable suggestion to throw out there and falls far short of being a conspiracy theory or ‘rape denial’.
So, the claims are "We have good reason to believe that the US Security State is up to bad stuff" and "Assange is suffering bad stuff." We can even say "Assange is kind of person the US Security State will do bad stuff to."
Nothing, however, about those claims, even if we accept them all as being true, gives us the smoking gun that says "It is likely that the US Security State is doing bad stuff to Assange." There's suggestion, sure, but it's not clear just how strong that suggestion is, especially when a lot of the bad stuff that is happening can be explained by far more prosaic explanations.
So, unless you have evidence to the contrary, I would say it is unreasonable (to whit, an irrational act ) to bandy about claims of massive smear campaigns and the like when there are other, more plausible, explanations to hand.
This is what irritates me (as someone who studies conspiracy theories); there seems to be a dialectic that goes "If it's possible that there is a conspiracy in existence, then we should admit it to the pool of candidate explanations for the event we are trying to explain and treat it seriously," which ignores the fact that only some candidate explanations (of the infinite number to hand) ever to get to be considered as credible candidates.
[I am going to say here that I am being a little bit of a Devil's Advocate here; I, for one, think it is quite possible the CIA want to get Assange. However, that's just a suspicion on my part and the evidence that would warrant such a suspicion is not, as far as I have been able to ascertain, there. It's quite possible that such evidence will emerge and thus change the relative warrant of such a claim, but, at the moment, well, I think we should assume simpler, non-conspiratorial explanations.]
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So, let me get this straight; we shouldn't worry about Assange, his character, possible agendas and suchlike and only focus on the evidence he has provided and worked with. On the other hand, we should worry about Prosecutor Marianne Ny's character, possible agendas and suchlike and not focus on the evidence she has provided and is working with? Because with comments like:
With my own tinfoil hat on, it seems to me that there might have been some “prosecutor shopping” going on, which brings us back to a possible campaign against Assange
it seems you want one standard for Assange and another for Ny.
You seem to think there is a (distinct) possibility that Prosecutor Ny is acting in accordance with some sinister conspiracy against Assange when it is at least just as likely that, as a more senior prosecutor, her expertise and the new evidence warranted the case being reopened and reinvestigated. No conspiracy is needed to explain that chain of events.
If you really think that there is sinister intent to the prosecution and it is being organise by some force operating within the Swedish legal system (which, if it connected with the other groups you suspect are campaigning against Assange, would be a) evidence of a massive and pervasive conspiracy and b) would show that Sweden's independent judiciary has been comprised, which indicates some level of treason going on there), then you are claiming that a charge of sexual assault is being used to smear a man. Now, if you want to make that claim, so be it, but just be aware that some of us are going to assume the simpler explanation is the more likely explanation in this case and that by making such a claim you are downplaying a very serious allegation, a kind of allegation that, traditionally, has been overly hard to prove precisely because people treat sexual assault charges as being the kind of thing that is laid suspiciously or malaciously.
Also:
Given what is publicly known about the way the USG reacts to leaks, from the days of Ellsberg onward, it is not paranoid to suspect a conspiracy or campaign; it is frankly naive to not suspect one.
All claims of "Conspiracy!" must be judged on their own merits. The past incidence of conspiratorial tells us precious little about the chances of a conspiracy occurring here and now.
If we want to say that some conspiratorial activity is the salient cause of an event, then we need to be able to give an argument that there exists (or existed) a conspiracy. It should not matter how open or conspired we think our society is because any claim of specific claim of "Conspiracy!" requires that we accept the following four conditions:
1. There exists a cabal,
2. Some end is/was desired by the cabal,
3. Work has been undertaken by the cabal to achieve this end, and
4. Steps have been taken to minimise public awareness of the cabal and its work.
Even if we live in a world of acknowledged secrecy and intrigue (say, like the Ancien Regime of pre-Revolutionary France) we still need to be able to cite evidence to the extent that, in this particular case, there exists a cabal of co-conspirators who desire some end and is (or has) undertaken work, in secret, towards this end. Whilst we might well have a prima facie suspicion that conspiratorial activity is going on (say, for example, the Ancien Regime) this suspicion in itself does not warrant any individual claim of a conspiracy existing now. General (warranted) suspicions about the likelihood of on-going conspiratorial activity here and now does not, in itself, warrant specific claims of conspiratorial activity; at best it reduces the burden of proof on the conspiracy theorist because, by analogy, they can say "This kind of activity, which is conspiratorial, is in line with all these other incidences of conspiratorial activity." Even if we can say that we live in a largely conspired world, the conspiracy theorist will still need to advance an argument with evidence for their specific conspiracy theory. Such an argument will rest upon offering some inference to the existence of a conspiracy which is not also an inference to any old explanation. This, even in a largely conspired world, is no easy task, which is why I am inclined to say that claims of "Conspiracy!" are difficult to discharge, extraordinary even.
Suspicion of "Conspiracy!" is not enough.
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No one here is saying that we should ignore the content of the leak nor are they doubting its authenticity. All that seems to be happening is that people are saying, with some justification, that Assange is a less than ideal character to be doing what he is doing with Wikileaks.
Also, can we try to avoid claiming the sexual assault allegations are part of a smear campaign? Not only is that a conspiracy theory, but it's also pretty close to rape denial and all that that entails. Even in the glorious social democracy of Sweden it is hard to prove in court the majority of actual sexual assaults committed by men on women. Let's not smear those women with claims that they are part of a smear campaign unless we are utterly convinced of that fact and have the evidence to support such a claim.
Whether or not he is guilty of any crime has not been proven, only alleged. If HORansome is alleged to be a forger or wifebeater, does that invalidate all you’ve said and/or done?
If my behaviour has bearing on what I've claimed, then sure, it will render what I've said less plausible. But, once again, no one (here) is saying "Don't believe anything Assange claims because of..." All that is being claimed is that his behaviour is a) not ideal and b) might have bearing on the work he is doing.
With my own tinfoil hat on, it seems to me that there might have been some “prosecutor shopping” going on, which brings us back to a possible campaign against Assange. Oh, did I say possible? Some American lawmakers want him branded a terrorist, the Australian Government is going over him with a fine tooth comb, etc. I think we can all see there is definitely a campaign going on.
No, we can't. A campaign here suggests an orchestrated and international conspiracy against Assange. What the evidence indicates, at this stage, is something much smaller, more diverse and rather less than conspiratorial. What we're seeing is reactions by individuals within governments who are going "Oh bugger, what are we going to do about this?" We're at the puff and bluster stage, where politicians are saying all kinds of crazy stuff, none of which entails that they are orchestrating some sinister plot in the background. This is perfectly normal political behaviour; the only people alleging "Conspiracy!" at the moment seem to be those who are reading far too much into the rather limited pool of evidence we have. This evidence, as it currently stands, does not warrant an inference to the kind of smear campaign you are talking about.
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Let me step into the ring with my argumentation theory hat on; not all ad hominem arguments/attacks are fallacious. A legitimate/non-fallacious form of the argumentum ad hominem relates to the act of testifying.
Assange is engaging in a kind of testifying; he is releasing data to the world. When people are engaged in such testimonial acts, we can ask whether their character in any way reflects upon that act (for example, is the witness reliable, or does the witness have an agenda that perverts the transmission of the testimony).
This is an important check and balance for testimony; without it there would be a lot of what some epistemologists call "pathological testimony:" testimony that is unreliable because whilst the propositions being asserted are true, the people who are transmitting said propositions are untrustworthy and thus we would have no good reason to believe what they assert.
None of this says that Assange is acting duplicitiously, et cetera, but we have to maintain a certain standard when it comes to assessing testimony and thus asking questions about Assange's character as it relates to his acts of testimony is something we must do if we are to trust him and, by extension, the things he is asserting.
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We should always assume cock-up rather than conspiracy. Just because you suspect skullduggery does not entail that there is a sinister plot at work here.
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Russell, let me be the first to assure you that those of us in charge (the Inebriati [thanks, David Mitchell and Robert Webb]) have yet to be discovered by the likes of Julian Assange. If he know what the One World Government was really up to... Well, he'd probably want in. We throw great parties.
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Yeah, I should have said "...why its focus has primarily on US activity recently."
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James, people (here) are not attacking Assange and using that to ignore the work he is doing. Instead, we are talking about how there is a seedy side to Assange and how this, in turn, affects the various opinions of Wikileaks and its operations. This is a quite legitimate activity; we can both be in awe [not everyone is in awe, though; there are legitimate questions as to what this means for the future operation of government] of what Assange and Wikileaks have done and find some of Assange's behaviour (as well as obvious questions about how Wikileaks runs and why its focus is primarily on US activity) questionable.
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In very sad news: Leslie Nielsen is dead. I'm willing to stick my neck out and say it was retribution by the CIA for Cablegate.
Also, can we please stop calling any scandal "something-gate" now. It's not, as David Mitchell once said, the case that we call Watergate "Watergategate." Why can't we just call it the US Embassy Cable Affair? Sounds like a lovely Leslie Charteris novel to me.