What a bizarrely ignorant thing for the UK to tell Ecuador, that it's actually thinking of violating the sanctity of the Ecuadorian embassy in order to take Julian Assange into custody.
First off, it's Julian Assange, not Osama bin Laden - so let's get a little perspective here.
Second, the Brits are seriously threatening one of the most serious breaches of international law - violating the territory of a foreign embassy? That puts British diplomats, and embassies, at serious risk in the future. For example, if the Brits actually think that it's okay for them to raid the Ecuadorian embassy, then it's also okay for the Americans to raid British embassies in the future the next time we want to carry out one of those beloved extraordinary renditions.
From Reuters:
"Under British law we can give them a weeks' notice before entering the premises and the embassy will no longer have diplomatic protection," a Foreign Office spokesman said. "But that decision has not yet been taken. We are not going to do this overnight. We want to stress that we want a diplomatically agreeable solution."If that's the case under British law, then I wouldn't want to be a British diplomat - because it's now fair game on Brits worldwide if their government truly takes international law this lightly.
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