Juan Cole: Ayatollah Cameron Threatens to Invade Ecuador Embassy

[Hissyspit]

http://www.juancole.com/2012/08/ayatollah-cameron-threatens-to-invade-ecuador-embassy-re-assange-or-whitewashing-iran-for-the-us-national-security-state.html

Ayatollah Cameron Threatens to invade Ecuador Embassy re: Assange (or, Whitewashing Iran for the US National Security State)

Posted on 08/16/2012 by Juan

The British government’s menacing of the Ecuadorean embassy in London on Thursday morning, with its threat that its police might well come on to the embassy grounds to arrest wikileaks leader and fugitive Julian Assange, resembles nothing so much as the Iranian regime’s cavalier attitude to the supposed inviolability of embassies. To be sure, Assange does not himself have diplomatic immunity. But the ground on which the Ecuadorean embassy sits is considered in international law to be Ecuadorean territory, and breaching it is tantamount to an invasion.

There is no question in my mind that President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have pressured British Prime Minister David Cameron into taking this step. The Obama administration’s reaction to the Wikileaks release of State Department cables with a relatively low level of classification has been astonishingly wrong-headed. The Pentagon Papers case in the 1970s established the principle that the US government had a right to try to keep its documents secret from us, but that if the documents were revealed, they could be freely published and cited by the public. In contrast, the current stance of the US government is that classified documents remain classified and US government property even if they have been published! And, State Department spokesmen have actually tried to threaten college students about talking about the documents on social media sites, since if they ever wanted to work for the US government, that sort of thing might be held against them. The Tomdispatch.com site has been banned on US government computers via filtering software because of its use of the Wikileaks cables. These measures are petty and ostrich-like. The cables have been released. Get over it.

- snip -

In the wake of the embassy invasion, then UK ambassador to Iran Dominick Chilcott told the Washington Post, “as a foreign diplomat, you can’t work in a country that does not respect the norms of the Vienna Convention.”

- snip -

Moreover, Assange did not commit a crime in the UK, and what he is accused of in Sweden isn’t even a crime in Britain. Violating an embassy merely to support an extradition request by a third party is excessive any way you look at it.


MORE[p]

[Scootaloo]

1. Well, in all fairness...

The US embassy in Tehran really was using CIA agents to work against the Iranian people, training SAVAK agents, etc.

[ToxMarz]

2. True

But to my knowledge no one had engaged in rough consensual sex with a Swede. Only normal embassy business.

[Fumesucker]

3. Welcome to DU!

Nice comment, I hope you enjoy your stay..

[ToxMarz]

7. Thanks for the welcome!

[Scootaloo]

6. I believe it works something like this...

[riderinthestorm]

9. True of virtually every embassy: spying, money laundering, arms dealing

Impossible to point to the US embassy in Iran as the only one engaging in illegal activities such as spying....

There've been any number of posts on DU today that state the Brits have every right to revoke Ecuador's embassy status if they're engaged in non-diplomatic work (cough* spying *cough, or any of the other regularly scheduled illegal activities common to these hubs). So since Ecuador is harboring a "fugitive", the Brits have the right to "invade".

Just trying to pre-empt the inevitable brigade when they rush over here....

[TrollBuster9090]

4. They obviously learned nothing from our invasion of Panama!

The trick is to do what we did to the Vatican Embassy in Panama when Manuel Noriega was hiding in there: surround the embassy with giant rock concert speakers, and blast it with Twisted Sister, We're Not Gonna Take It until Assange comes out begging to be put into a nice quiet jail cell.

[Londoncalling]

5. Cameron is on vacation with his family..

It is Teresa May and William Hugue that are incharge...

[Ya Basta]

8. Video

[hifiguy]

10. Wouldn't that be considered an act of war?

You know damned well that if the Ecuadorians turned their military loose against the British embassy that Cameron would have a shitfit and fall into it.

[KoKo]

11. Awww, Heck! I loved this read gotta "K&R!"

Donkey Kick is gone from DU-3..

I'll do my best:

:kick: