It does look like they are trying to railroad him, however it is disingenuous to say that Swedish law says consensual sex without a condom is rape, what they actually claim is that if you consent to have sex with a condom and the sex is without a condom this is rape. I have no problem whatsoever with this interpretation of rape.
Seriously, I don't care to get into the niggly details of his personal life. There was no force or violence involved and no allegations of force or violence. The women he slept with were eager and willing and above the age of consent.
To call every little disagreement about the exact mechanics of how to go about your consensual sexual encounter "rape" severely devalues the meaning of the word. If these women didn't want to have sex without a condom, they should have and could have simply walked away when he expressed distaste for using them.
I do have a problem using a trumped up charges, however I'm not privy to the the details of the charges, it looks suspect to me, but we have no way of knowing if these women are being used by someone or if the charges are true.
Nobody denies that consensual sex occurred with both "victims". What is at issue is the specific details of the encounters, which I have no interest in hearing about, to be honest. Why would that be any of my business, or anyone else's? The first prosecutor dropped the charges due to a lack of substance, only to be replaced by another prosecutor who overturned her decision. THAT, I find interesting. What exactly Assange gets up to in bed with his consenting partners, not so much.
While I am inclined towards disbelief, if it is he wouldn't be the first crusader who was deeply flawed personally. If the sex charge is dropped but leads to extradition or other charges I will be convinced that what my gut is telling me is true, at the moment I'm trying to keep an open mind on it.
Well, the aim of the campaign, according to
a document leaked in March, is to discredit Wikileaks insiders through criminal prosecutions in order to erode the base of public trust which makes their system attractive to whistle blowers. Mission accomplished, I'd say. It probably doesn't matter much whether they manage to string him up as a rapist or a spy.