The UK wouldn't extradite Pinochet, but they're threatening to storm the Ecuadorian embassy in London to see that Wikileaks impresario Julian Assange is extradited to Sweden where a prosecutor wants to decide whether to charge him for sexual violations, more likely so that the Australian can then be rendered to the US to be imprisoned like Bradley Manning and face the death penalty for espionage. The US denies this intention, though it voted against Ecuador's allies to hold a meeting about the continuing US-UK assault on journalism and whistleblowers. Can the Western empire let Assange and Manning escape severe reprimand? The two are only the mastermind and the alleged-source who've ignited the global uprising behind the anti- austerity movements, Arab Spring, and Occupy. President Obama cannot leave either off the hook without encouraging a deluge of more insider defections. Bradley Manning is already under torture in military custody, but Assange continues to evade US clutches. Should he escape to asylum in Ecuador where Obama's exterminator drones can deal "American Justice"? The US has yet to condemn a white man to targeted assassination, but in the Global South, in darker-skinned populations, who will know? I favor Ecuador expanding its embassy to more than the first floor office, to offer Wikileaks an entire center of operations for as long as Julian Assange is confined under virtual house arrest. In Assange's speech from the embassy balcony he repeated three times: "Bradley Manning must be released." Journalists must be free to expose the crimes of the rich. Citing prison sentences for a Bahrain dissident and Russia's Pussy Riot, Assange concluded: "There is unity in the oppression. There must be absolute unity and determination in the response." Here's the full text of Assange's statement: “I am here today because I cannot be there with you today. But thank you for coming. Thank you for your resolve and your generosity of spirit. “On Wednesday night, after a threat was sent to this embassy and the police descended on this building, you came out in the middle of the night to watch over it and you brought the world’s eyes with you. “Inside this embassy, after dark, I could hear teams of police swarming up into the building through its internal fire escape. But I knew there would be witnesses. And that is because of you. “If the UK did not throw away the Vienna conventions the other night, it is because the world was watching. And the world was watching because you were watching. “So, the next time somebody tells you that it is pointless to defend those rights that we hold dear, remind them of your vigil in the dark before the Embassy of Ecuador. “Remind them how, in the morning, the sun came up on a different world and a courageous Latin America nation took a stand for justice. And so, to those brave people. I thank President Correa for the courage he has shown in considering and in granting me political asylum. “And I also thank the government, and in