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View Full Version : WikiLeaks founder should be killed: PM's ex-adviser



Grumpy Cat
12-01-2010, 10:08 PM
A former senior adviser to Prime Minister Stephen Harper has joined some pundits and politicians in calling for the assassination of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

In a panel interview Monday night on CBC's Power & Politics with Evan Solomon, Tom Flanagan said U.S. President Barack Obama "should put out a contract and maybe use a drone or something.

"I think Assange should be assassinated, actually," Flanagan said with a laugh, and when asked to expand upon his answer, added that he "wouldn't be unhappy" if Assange "disappeared."

When the CBC's Solomon commented that his position was "pretty harsh stuff," Flanagan, who is known for his off-the-cuff sense of humour and often brings props to panel interviews, replied: "I'm feeling very manly today, Evan."

Although the University of Calgary professor described most of the information in the leaked U.S. cables as "harmless," he added the revelation that Arab diplomats requested the U.S. to attack Iran's nuclear facilities as secrets that "could conceivably lead to war."

"This is really not stuff that should be out," he said.

A number of U.S. and Canadian media figures have either suggested or demanded the 39-year-old former computer hacker be targeted for assassination or executed in the wake of the embarrassing scandal over the hundreds of thousands of secret diplomatic messages being published online. Amid the furor, Assange's whereabouts remain unknown.

Former U.S. Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who is widely expected to run for president in 2012, has called Assange an "anti-American operative with blood on his hands" and accused Obama of not doing enough to stop the WikiLeaks founder.

"Why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders?" she said.

Canadian author and columnist Ezra Levant questioned why the Obama administration has treated the Australian-born Assange differently than the Taliban leaders targeted for assassination, saying he and his WikiLeaks colleagues "act like spies, not journalists."

"Why is Assange still alive?" Levant wrote in his column for QMI Agency earlier this week.

"Why is he being treated as a journalist or political activist? If someone had published the intimate details of the D-Day plans during the Second World War, he would never have been seen again."

Meanwhile, Interpol has placed Assange on its most-wanted list after Sweden issued an arrest warrant against him as part of a drawn-out rape investigation.

Assange, whose whereabouts are unknown, is suspected of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion. He has denied the allegations, which stem from his encounters with two women during a visit to Sweden in August.


Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2010/12/01/flanagan-wikileaks-assange.html#ixzz16sP58Smc

Funny if I had said this on national TV, I would go to jail.

I bet Ezra Levant would get punished, though.

Eldritch
12-02-2010, 12:32 AM
I think the feeling manly bit is the the key here. Those with the actual power and authority for more straightforward problem solving are unlikely to brag or fantasise about it on television. Or the internet.