“I want people to see the truth…regardless of who they are…because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public.” – Bradley Manning
“Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.” – George Bernard Shaw
Ever since WikiLeaks became a household name this past summer, following the release of 77,000 secret U.S. documents relating to the ongoing occupation and destruction of Afghanistan, many American politicians and pundits have been calling for blood. Despite then-top military commander General Stanley McChrystal’s own admission in March of this year, the U.S. military in Afghanistan has “shot an amazing number of people” even though “none has ever proven to be a threat,” the ire resulting from the activities of WikiLeaks is directed at the whistle-blowers themselves, rather than at those actually implicated in war crimes as shown by the leaked documents.
In their eternal allegiance to government secrecy, aggressive imperialism, and American exceptionalism, numerous WikiLeaks’ critics have been outraged over the publication of U.S. government documents. While accusing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange of everything from espionage to terrorism to treason (Assange isn’t a U.S. citizen), they hold him responsible for the deaths of both soldiers and civilians and have even publicly suggested and supported threats to assassinate him.
The U.S. State Department claimed that the release of classified cables would “at a minimum…place at risk the lives of countless innocent individuals”, and Attorney General Eric Holder stated his belief that “national security of the United States has been put at risk. The lives of people who work for the American people have been put at risk. The American people themselves have been put at risk by these actions that I believe are arrogant, misguided and ultimately not helpful in any way.”
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has described these hysterical reactions to WikiLeaks release as “fairly significantly overwrought” due to the continuing slow and calculated release of over 251,000 previously secret and classified U.S. diplomatic cables (fewer than 1,500 cables have been released so far). Still, there are increasing calls not only for Assange’s indictment, but also explicitly for his murder.
On November 29, Fox News‘s Bill O’Reilly declared on air that those responsible for the leaked documents are “traitors in America” and that they “should be executed,” adding “or put in prison for life,” as a dismissive afterthought.
The next day, Bill Kristol, in a The Weekly Standard article entitled “Whack WikiLeaks,” urged the United States government to “neutralize Julian Assange and his collaborators, wherever they are” and hoped for a glorious, unified bipartisan effort “to degrade, defeat, and destroy WikiLeaks.” One need only recall what Senator Lindsey Graham said in early November about “neutering” the Iranian government to get an idea of what Kristol is talking about.
Sarah Palin chimed in on Facebook, writing that Assange “is an anti-American operative with blood on his hands” who should be “pursued with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders.” This very urgency was mentioned in a presidential debate in October 2008 by Palin campaign opponent Barack Obama, who made the following promise to Americans: “We will kill bin Laden; we will crush Al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority.” One can assume that Palin meant that the WikiLeaks founder should be hunted with a similar kind of lethal force and not that he should simply be left alone to die peacefully from kidney failure in the mountains of Tora Bora nine years ago while his family is quickly placed under the protection of the FBI and flown to a secure location. But then again, it’s Sarah Palin.
On the same day, another 2012 Republican presidential hopeful wished for the assassination of Assange. Former Arkansas governor and Fox News host Mike Huckabee, speaking at The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Library, told reporters, “Whoever in our government leaked that information is guilty of treason, and I think anything less than execution is too kind a penalty.” Huckabee, who was signing copies of his new children’s book, “Can’t Wait Till Christmas!” at the time, was presumably referring to U.S. Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, who is accused of providing WikiLeaks with the classified documents and is currently being held in intense solitary confinement the brig at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia. Manning has been locked up in Quantico or five months now, after spending two months detained in a military jail in Kuwait. Manning, like Assange, has not been convicted of any crime. Kids, Christmas, and Capital Punishment. Thanks, Mike!
Fox News national security analyst Kathleen McFarland urged the United States to declare WikiLeaks a terrorist organization, kidnap Assange, and try him in a military tribunal for espionage. Furthermore, McFarland, who served in the Pentagon under the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations and is currently a “Distinguished Adviser” at the Iran-hating/Israel-advocating think tank The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, agreed with Huckabee that Manning should be charged and tried as a traitor for exposing American war crimes, criminal negligence, and diplomatic duplicity. “If he’s found guilty,” she wrote, “he should be executed.”
Also on November 30, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) – whose contradictory motto reads Securing America, Strengthening Israel – addressed the WikiLeaks release by musing whether the U.S. government would “try to hang Manning from the nearest tree?”
In a post on the right-wing website Red State on December 1, a commenter by the moniker “lexington_concord” fantasized about Julian Assange receiving the Abe Lincoln treatment. “Under the traditional rules of engagement he is thus subject to summary execution,” he writes, “and my preferred course of action would be for Assange to find a small caliber round in the back of his head.”
The following day, Washington Times columnist Jeffrey Kuhner published a vitriolic attack on Assange, whom he accused of being “an anti-American radical who wants to see the United States defeated by its Islamic fascist enemies.” Other goals Kuhner ascribed to Assange included the humiliation of America “on the world stage, to drain it of all moral and legal legitimacy – especially regarding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Kuhner wrote that Assange “is aiding and abetting terrorists in their war against America,” and suggested that the Obama administration “take care of the problem – effectively and permanently” by treating Assange as an “enemy combatant” and “the same way as other high-value terrorist targets.” It is no surprise, therefore, that Kuhner’s column was entitled “Assassinate Assange.”
Though it may seem strange that a Montreal native like Kuhner is disappointed that “America is no longer feared or respected,” he is not the only Canadian to harbor such violent visions of Assange’s murder. Tom Flanagan, a senior adviser to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, said plainly on the Canadian TV station CBC, “I think Assange should be assassinated, actually. I think Obama should put out a contract and maybe use a drone or something.”
Speaking with Chris Wallace on Fox News, former House Speaker and paid Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich said on December 5 that “Julian Assange is engaged in warfare. Information terrorism, which leads to people getting killed is terrorism. And Julian Assange is engaged in terrorism.” As such, Gingrich suggested, “He should be treated as an enemy combatant and WikiLeaks should be closed down permanently and decisively.” If recent history is any indication, as an enemy combatant Assange would most likely be either murdered in his own country by U.S. soldiers and air strikes or kidnapped, tortured, and indefinitely imprisoned in inhumane conditions without charge or trial.
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.