On December 6, Fox News commentators Bob Beckel and Bo Dietl followed suit. Speaking on the Fox Business show “Follow The Money,” Beckel, who was a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Carter administration and Walter Mondale’s 1984 presidential campaign manager, angrily wished for U.S. Special Ops forces to kill Assange, declaring, “A dead man can’t leak stuff. This guy’s a traitor, a treasonist [sic], and he has broken every law of the United States. And I’m not for the death penalty, so…there’s only one way to do it: Illegally shoot the son of a bitch.” Dietl, former NYPD detective and current Chairman of the New York State Security Guard Advisory Council, concurred with Beckel, saying, “this guy’s gotta go.” He then coined a brand new euphemism for assassination by suggesting that the United States should “immune him,” before making a finger gun and childlike shooting sound.
But the public advocacy, even if merely rhetorical, for the assassination of Assange is by no means new.
This past summer, after the Afghanistan memos were released, neoconservative jingoist Marc Thiessen wrote in The Washington Post that “WikiLeaks is not a news organization; it is a criminal enterprise” which is responsible for “getting people killed.” Thiessen continued,
“Assange is a non-U.S. citizen operating outside the territory of the United States. This means the government has a wide range of options for dealing with him. It can employ not only law enforcement but also intelligence and military assets to bring Assange to justice and put his criminal syndicate out of business.”
Intelligence and military assets don’t sound too judicial. Thiessen also urged the government to “disable the system [Assange] has built to illegally disseminate classified information,” apparently insinuating that The Guardian, The New York Times, and Der Spiegel should all be shut down and the internet turned off. If that’s not what he meant, it doesn’t make any sense.
On July 29, Right Wing News‘ John Hawkins posted an article subtlely entitled “The CIA Should Kill Julian Assange,” in which he wrote:
“In Assange’s case, he’s not an American and so he has no constitutional protection. Moreover, he’s going to get a lot of people killed. Can we do anything legally about someone from another country leaking this information? Maybe not. Can we have a CIA agent with a sniper rifle rattle a bullet around his skull the next time he appears in public as a warning? You bet we can — and we should. If that’s too garish for people, then the CIA can kill him and make it look like an accident.
“Either way, Julian Assange deserves to die for what he’s done and he should be killed to send a message loud enough to convince other people not to publish documents like this in the future.”
Hawkins couldn’t be more wrong. Not only are American citizens protected by the U.S. Constitution, non-citizens are protected as well. The Fourteenth Amendment holds that no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Moreover, as Glenn Greenwald has pointed out, the principle that the Constitution applies both to Americans and to foreigners, was upheld and affirmed in an 1886 ruling by the Supreme Court on the case Yick Wo v. Hopkins. The Court’s decision read:
“The fourteenth amendment to the constitution is not confined to the protection of citizens. It says: ‘Nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.’ These provisions are universal in their application, to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction, without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality; and the equal protection of the laws is a pledge of the protection of equal laws…The questions we have to consider and decide in these cases, therefore, are to be treated as involving the rights of every citizen of the United States equally with those of the strangers and aliens who now invoke the jurisdiction of the court.”
Nevertheless, after this most recent WikiLeaks disclosure of secret diplomatic cables, Hawkins posted a follow-up on Townhall called “5 Reasons The CIA Should Have Already Killed Julian Assange,” in which he repeated his claim that because “Julian Assange is not an American citizen…he has no constitutional rights,” concluding that “there’s no reason that the CIA can’t kill him.” Hawkins added that, even though Assange “may not be in Osama Bin Laden’s league, nor is he using the same methods,” WikiLeaks and Al Qaeda’s motivations are the same, namely, “to do as much damage to the United States as humanly possible.” Hawkins then suggested that “Assange is an enemy of the American people,” presumably not taking into account those Americans who may not want to be lied to about its own government’s war crimes authorized by its leaders and committed by its soldiers and intelligence agencies, in addition to the espionage emanating from its hundreds of embassies and consulates worldwide. Hawkins, blissfully ignorant about his own government’s actions, declares that “our country will be safer when he’s dead,” as “the first step towards convincing other nations that they can trust us again would be make this a better world by removing Julian Assange from it.”
After the WikiLeaks release of nearly 400,000 documents relating to the U.S. occupation of Iraq this October, former State Department senior adviser and Fox News contributor Christian Whiton urged Barack Obama to “designate WikiLeaks and its officers as enemy combatants, paving the way for non-judicial actions against them,” while warmonger extraordinaire Jonah Goldberg wrote an OpEd in the Chicago Tribune entitled “Why Is Assange Still Alive?” After opening with “a simple question: Why isn’t Julian Assange dead?,” Goldberg suggests that WikiLeaks “is going to get people killed” and “is easily among the most significant and well-publicized breaches of American national security since the Rosenbergs gave the Soviets the bomb.”
As such, from the comfort of his computer keyboard, Goldberg once again courageously wonders, “Why wasn’t Assange garroted in his hotel room years ago?” lamenting that Assange was not “a greasy stain on the Autobahn already.”
This violent talk of extrajudicial murder should come as no surprise to American audiences. Pundits and politicians have long looked to assassination as a legitimate tactic in dealing with undesirable or frustrating persons who either disobey imperial diktat or openly oppose American hegemony.
Back in 2006, Republican congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who will chair the House Committee on Foreign Affairs come January, was caught on camera saying, “I welcome the opportunity of having anyone assassinate Fidel Castro and any leader who is oppressing the people.”
This past August, journalist Gary Baumgarten ruminated on what would happen in Iran if President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been assassinated. Two months later, far-right Knesset minister Aryeh Eldad called for such an assassination while Ahmadinejad was visiting Lebanon.
Nima Shirazi – protected by the freedoms that America has given him and his family, through the bleeding and bloodletting of countless warriors in the name of freedom. Your protection under the Ist Amendment is solid and allows you to speak, write and continue to breathe, unlike outspoken dissidents in other parts of the world – you’re welcome. And welcome to our tribe. . .
“You’re welcome”? Who was I thanking? You? For what? Did you bestow my Constitutional Rights unto me? Did you “protect” my “freedoms”? If so, how, when, where…and against whom? Who was trying to take my “freedoms” away from me?
And into who’s “tribe” am I being welcomed? By whom? You? Are you the vanguard of American citizenship? I received my American citizenship when I was born here. If you’re welcoming me into my own country, you’re mighty late. But…thanks?
Send Bradley a card this season, he’s been in solitary since May.
http://www.bradleymanning.org/15364/holiday-cards-for-bradley-mannings-freedom/
I certainly hope that those who read your reference to how I “ruminated on what would happen in Iran if President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been assassinated” click on the link you provided so they are not left with the incorrect impression that I advocate his murder.
Like this piece, my posting was prompted by calls, then, for Ahmadinejad’s assassination and includes this passage:
“But an Iranian expert at Columbia University says, hypothetically, should someone successfully kill Ahmadinejad, the results could be the exact opposite of the intent.
“‘Evidently there was no assassination attempt, or if there was the regime is underplaying it,'” says Iranian studies professor Hamid Dabashi. ‘And fortunately so, because any major act of violence at this point is bound to radicalize the regime, militarize its security apparatus even further, and push Iran further to the edge of abyss’.”
Gary,
Thanks for chiming in on this. I certainly did not intend to insinuate that you advocated murder.
In fact, I very purposefully chose the phrase “ruminated on” (rather than, say, “advocated,” “encouraged,” “suggested,” or “called for”) to describe your approach to a hypothetical Ahmadinejad assassination attempt.
I do think, however, that even postulating on such a thing – even rhetorically – acts as a way to mainstream the notion of assassination as something legitimate. You certainly never condemn such an act.
Your article also lends credence to the widely-espoused anti-Iran propaganda machine that demonizes the Iranian government in general, and the president, in particular.
You describe Ahmadinejad as “the man who symbolizes oppression of the Iranian people,” without taking any time to acknowledge his immense popularity within Iran. Quite the contrary, you only quote Prof. Dabashi, who – as everyone knows – is a staunch and stubborn opponent of Ahmadinejad and refuses to accept that Ahmadinejad actually won last year’s reelection fairly, despite the fact that all available evidence shows quite clearly that this is the case.
You also note Ahmadinejad’s “frequent provocative statements” yet you don’t state what they are. A reader is left with the impression that you believe – as is so often repeated in the mainstream media – that Ahmadinejad has called for Israel to be “wiped off the map” and denied that the Holocaust ever happened, neither of which is true. As a journalist, you should know better than to repeat long-debunked and deliberately demonizing accusations.
Further, by asking whether “things [might] suddenly improve for the Iranian people” (or merely stay the same) were Ahmadinejad to be killed, you again play into the notion that the Iranian government is not viewed favorably in Iran and that the Iranian people not only view themselves as victims of severe government oppression, but that they long for regime change and a new form of government.
Over the past few years, numerous polls have shown these ideas to be unfounded. For instance, in several post-election polls in Iran, more than 70% of respondents said they saw Ahmadinejad as the legitimate, democratically-elected president of the country and around 80% viewed the 2009 election as free and fair.
Additionally, more than 80% of Iranians polled said they were satisfied with the current system of government.
A poll conducted this past September (over a year after the election and aftermath) finds that about 60% of Iranians say they voted for Ahmadinejad – a percentage which is not only consistent with every single pre- and post-election survey, but also essentially matches the official results.
Also, this recent poll, conducted by the International Peace Institute, revealed (unsurprisingly to those who have been paying attention) that only about one-third of Iranians view opposition leaders Mousavi and Karroubi favorably, while a mere 26% have positive feelings about the so-called “Green Movement.”
These findings are, once again, completely in line with last year’s election results.
Nearly 60% of respondents also said that the government’s response to the riots and protests which followed the vote was appropriate (19% said the reaction “went too far”). Iranians also continue to support the combination of a theocratic and republican government (which it currently has), though they overwhelmingly believe that Iran will become more democratized over the next decade.
Your article, by using only the words of Dabashi and no other voice, never speaks of assassination as immoral or illegal, only as impractical. Dabashi states that “any major act of violence” would “radicalize the regime” and “push Iran further to the edge of abyss.” What abyss is this, I wonder? You never explain.
Stating that Ahmadinejad is the symbol of Iranian oppression is disingenuous to say the least. Remember, he’s the one who called for women to be allowed to attend soccer games shortly after his first inauguration. He was lambasted by the religious conservatives. He has also, repeatedly, stated his belief that the government has better things to do than restrict women’s clothing and police public “immodesty.”
Just this past summer (two months before you wrote your piece), Ahmadinejad publicly stated his opposition to the dress-code crackdown, saying, “The government does not agree with this behavior and will respond to and control it as much as it can. It is an insult to ask a man and woman walking on the street about their relation to each other. Nobody has the right to ask such questions.”
These reports are consistent with a recent diplomatic cable from Baku, Azerbaijian and released by WikiLeaks this month. The cable reports that, during a Supreme National Security Council meeting in mi-January 2010, Ahmadinejad spoke of the Iranian people feeling “suffocated,” and advocating the necessity of “more personal and social freedoms, including more freedom of the press.” In response to such a suggestion, an “infuriated Revolutionary Guard Chief of Staff Mohammed Ali Jafari” yelled at the president and “slapped [him] in the face, causing an uproar.”
This is your “man who symbolizes oppression”? Hardly.
Thanks again for reading, reposting my article, and getting in touch.
Best,
Nima
I note that nowhere do you say that killing Ajad would “wrong”, “immoral” or even “illegal” under US and International law.
“Attorney General Eric Holder stated his belief that “national security of the United States has been put at risk”?
People have forgotten that 36 years ago in 1974 a former top Senior CIA whom become a Whistle-blower said that the CIA and Henry Kissinger took part in training the Police and the Military of the country of South America in killing over 6.000.000 millions innocent man, women, and children that were accussed of beirn “Communists” when they were not Communists at all they just oppossed the USA Government Nuclear Missiles Programs. In fact the former CIA said that if one of the South American countries had the Nuclear Bomb to Nuke the USA the CIA could not have carried out Terrorism against innocent civilians who were not Muslims at all. The USA country has been Threatening themselves by Bullying the world long before the war of Iraq and Afghanistian but they blame others Nations because “The USA Cannot Handle The Truth”. The USA Government will poo their own trousers if a country of South America goes Nuclear to Revenge themselves for all the Crimes that the CIA and Henry Kissinger have committed against them. Those people of South America were not Muslims at all they were rival Christians who did not like the Catholics pedophiles. The USA has an history of protecting Catholics pedophiles because there are 60 Millions of them living in the USA country. The USA Government and their CIA showed not Respect so soon or later the USA will become like Sodom and Gomorrah because their crimes has reached Heaven. The Muslims will never take the glory away from the people of South America because more Rival Christians died in South America than all of those Muslims who died in Iraq and Afhganistan. The Hell with the Muslims, the Catholis, the USA and the CIA and that idiot with a short memory call Attorney General Eric Holder.