Julian Assange: Time to Show Your Shadow
Dear Julian:
In America, we have a quaint custom called Groundhog Day. According to folklore, if it is cloudy when a groundhog emerges from its burrow on February 2, then spring will come early. If it is sunny, the groundhog will likely see its shadow and retreat back into its burrow, and cold winter weather will continue for six more weeks. Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania is the epicenter of groundhog day. The Pennsylvania German dialect is the only language spoken at some of these events, and those who speak English pay a small penalty.
Given your self-imposed house arrest inside one of the smallest embassies in London, this would be a great opportunity for you and your involuntary hosts to do immersion Spanish study. Ah, but then again, those Ecuadorean diplomats -- all of six, including the ambassador -- actually have work to do, most of it now centered on you. Conducting Berlitz courses for a 40-year old crackpot Aussie unlikely will fit into their busy schedules. In my essay, Diplomatic Asylum: Why an Embassy Isn't Embassy Suites, I explain why a diplomatic mission is not Embassy Suites. Therefore, Julian, do not expect in the evenings to find a mint on the pillow of your camping cot stuck between the copying machine and filing cabinets. And as for room service, uh, don't expect the second secretary for political affairs to deliver vegemite and toast each morning. In contrast to your last abode, the elegant country manor Ellingham Hall and its politically misguided owners, you now squat in a five-room apartment-turned-micro-embassy, the staffers of which, you will find, will become increasingly uncomfortable with the univited guest in their midst. What's that saying about fish and house guests. . .?
But their hands are tied. Their likewise crackpot president, Rafael Correa, can't pass up an opporunity to stick it to Uncle Sam. And you two really hit it off when you interviewed him for Russian TV. You notice a pattern here? Crackpot Aussie + Crackpot Banana Republic Autocrat + Crackpot Russian TV. Birds of a feather do flock together! Here's the deal, Julian: posture all he wants, Correa can't spring you. The Brits simply won't let you go. Why should they? My guess is that poor Ambassadress Alban, under orders from Quito, has been trying to get the Brits to buy onto a deal which would permit you to board a plane for glamourous and dynamic Quito, where you could then resume your iconoclastic ways -- until Correa is inevitably deposed (read Latin American history; it's not exactly a study in political stability).
Julian, let's look at the facts:
you face charges of raping one Swedish woman and molesting another (yes! another behavioral pattern)
you've stiffed your naive-nutso supporters of £200,000 ($311,458) in forfeited bail money
Wikileaks is leaderless and falling apart
your accomplice in crime, Brian Manning, faces a likely lengthy jail term of breaking rocks at Leavenworth
news editors who previously lapped up your purloined state secrets now want nothing to do with you
your own Australian government disowns you
your Ecuadorean hosts will not put up with one lunatic Ocker in their lilliputian embassy indefinitely, believe me
the British are a patient and determined people, and they will snag you. Remember Napolean?
you have a consistent way of pissing off everybody with whom you come in contact. Your fellow Wikileakers have fallen out with you. Even feral Pres. Correa will eventually lose patience as a patron of an unbalanced, big-mouthed alleged rapist
So, back to our groundhog, which, in this case, is you, Julian. Be a man for once. Show your shadow. Step out, stretch and breathe the fresh Knightsbridge air. Let the bobbies, always unfailingly polite, take you into custody. Stop imposing on the Ecuadoreans and thereby get your pal Pres. Correa off the hook. Return to tolerant Sweden to face the music. Don't worry about facing the gallows or a firing squad in America. We haven't executed a foreign national for giving away state secrets since our revolution. But I'll be honest here and say Leavenworth, or similar lodging, isn't out of the picture. And they won't place a mint on your pillow either.
See also:
Julian Assange as Dr. Frankenstein
Why Wikileaks and Its Founder Must Be Hounded to the ends of the Universe and Be Utterly Destroyed
Wikileaks Fallout: Why Diplomats Are Not Spies -- Putting a Diplomat's Work in Perspective
Wikileaks Fallout: Observations on a Banana Republic