So what the hell happened here? Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, was this morning a rapist on the run, with the charges in Sweden splashed across news pages everywhere. I was getting emails saying that there was always something wrong with the guy, and how in character it was for anarchists not to understand consent, and a bunch of other bunk. Then within a matter of hours, this:

Sweden has cancelled an arrest warrant for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange on accusations of rape and molestation.

The Swedish Prosecution Authority website said the chief prosecutor had come to the decision that Mr Assange was not suspected of rape but did not give any further explanation.

The warrant was issued late on Friday.

Wikileaks, which has been criticised for leaking Afghan war documents, had quoted Mr Assange as saying the charges were “without basis”.

That message, which appeared on Twitter and was attributed directly to Mr Assange, said the appearance of the allegations “at this moment is deeply disturbing”.

Aside from the big mistake made by the Swedish Prosecution Authority, I’ve never seen news of a bogus charge like this fly around the world so fast. It was almost as if the subject in question had powerful enemies with the ability to make his life difficult…

Glenn Greenwald walks down the same path as me on this one:

There are a lot of lessons here, most of them obvious. In 2003, the ex-Marine and U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter — who had become one of the most persuasive opponents of the attack on Iraq, repeatedly and presciently insisting that there was no evidence of WMD — was the subject of a media smear campaign, accusing him of having engaged in criminal sex acts with adolescents. That led to commentary like this from the nation’s sleaziest bottom-feeders:

A THEORY [Jonah Goldberg]

Maybe this has already been discussed. But it seems to me this Scott Ritter kiddie-sex bust might explain Ritter’s sudden and inexplicable 180 on Iraq. Maybe they set him up in a sting? That sort of thing was standard op for the KGB. Just a thought.

Maybe one day we’ll learn that an accusation is not proof of guilt. And the Swedish authorities who validated these charges and trumpeted them to the world — only for them to be withdrawn less than 12 hours later — ought to be investigated.

You can add to this the new revelation that the Pentagon refused to work with Wikileaks in verifying redactions, after claiming that Wikileaks never contacted them. And the fact that nobody has actually come to harm, as of yet, from exposure in the Wikileaks documents. It’s hard to take seriously anything written about the organization, considering the mass of establishment support to discredit them.