Contra Mundum: What a Waste of Time.

Although it certainly constitutes a breach of probation conditions Rihanna and Chris Brown's reunion in a New York nightclub would test the bounds of submission by coercion under US rape laws. However under Sweden's much tighter rape laws there would be a much higher chance of conviction. So if a restraining order had been put in place and investigation mounted Sweden would have come under extreme pressure to refuse Brown entry to their country in order for consistency on the Julian Assange case. I don't know if the US want to extradite Assange or whether they don't want to extradite Assange but I do know they most certainly want to have the upper hand in the argument.

You may also remember that the Swedish rape allegations against Assange first broke during the COP16/CMP6 Summit where they were intended to inflame an argument between the representatives from Saudi Arabia and well most other delegations over women's rights. Specifically the Saudi delegations tendency to tell much more qualified female delegates to "get back in the kitchen." With the COP18/CMP8 taking place in Qatar and likely to focus very heavily on the situation in Syria which the US is in a very weak position it would have been useful to revisit that issue as a smokescreen to offer the US a degree of protection.  Then with the restraining order in place it would have been extremely unlikely that Rihanna and Brown would have reunited during either his or her tours. That meant the rest of his tour would have provided an opportunity for a very gentle discussion between the US and the host nations over the Assange issue, the COP issue and the Syria issue. The discussion with the Republic of Ireland would have been a very useful way for the US to build and allegiance with a nation that it is going to have to work very closely with on the United Nations Human Rights Council. In fact for a few very happy minutes I thought this could be the only possible explanation for why the New York reunion had been engineered.

Instead though the US did not introduce a restraining order and set off to achieve. Well apart p*ssing a lot of people off I'm not sure exactly what they've achieved. Rihanna and Brown did not reunite in Sweden nor did they reunite in London and more importantly no-one even believed that they would. Even the way that the European Union Budget Summit broke up doesn't exactly appear to have achieved the US' objective. Far from breaking up in a disorderly and hostile way the Summit just sort of calmly ended ahead of schedule indicating it was more a case of all the nations simply agreeing that they would not be dancing to the US' tune. There is a sign of progress though with the US tonight announcing that they will not be charging Brown over a June bar fight in New York - another probation violation. This is clearly designed to provoke a reaction to assess how much anger their failure to put their dog back on his leash will provoke. Given the way these things work I doubt they'll get an accurate response but I think if they can't do Brown and his team for a bar fight at this point they've got a good chance of doing him for treason because the other option is to put the rabid dog down.

So while there is a chance I can still clean Rihanna's reputation Brown has been so deep in this for so long there ain't no getting the stench of him.

21:55 on 24/11/12.