So we know the U.S. intelligence agencies have had a mad-on for Julian Assange and Wikileaks for a while now:

(S//NF) Wikileaks.org represents a potential force protection, counterintelligence, OPSEC, and INFOSEC threat to the US Army.

…

(S//NF) Web sites such as Wikileaks.org have trust as their most important center of gravity by protecting the anonymity and identity of the insider, leaker, or whistleblower. Successful identification, prosecution, termination of employment, and exposure of persons leaking the information by the governments and businesses affected by information posted to Wikileaks.org would damage and potentially destroy this center of gravity and deter others from taking similar actions.

(Those S//NFs stand for “Secret/No Foreign,” meaning it cannot be [well, should not have been] released to anybody whose security clearance is lower than “Secret,” nor to anybody who is not a U.S. citizen regardless of their possible security clearance.)

Yesterday, Swedish authorities arrested Assange “in absentia” for one count of molestation and one count of rape (Assange was not in Sweden at the time; I sadly do not know how one can be “arrested in absentia”).

There was a near-immediate “smear campaign!” backlash, based on the leaked document and recent US officials’ comments about Assange, as well as the seeming unlikelihood that Assange, constantly on the move and probably constantly watched, would have had time and opportunity to molest two women in his short time in Sweden.

Sure enough, a few hours later, Sweden’s chief prosecutor revoked the warrant and cleared Assange:

Chief prosector Eva Finné has come to the desicion that Julian Assange is not suspected of rape. Considering that, Assange is no longer arrested in his absence.

There’s no way to prove this was a malicious accusation, and obviously no way to prove who was involved, and you’d really hope that if the CIA had sponsored something like this they’d have been better at making it stick for more than about half of a day, but…

…now, I’m trying to come to terms with the fact that, in a world where people’s thoughts include “women cry ‘rape!’ like ‘wolf!’,” where victims’ credibility is doubted and questioned to an incomparable degree… my country’s government may have tried to manufacture a false rape charge against a man they don’t like and wish to discredit, knowingly feeding further the terrible idea that victims should be considered liars first and foremost.