Assange is fighting for all of us despite the politicans that would assassinate him

Politically Incorrect

By Gerry Warner

Cranbrook Daily Townsman

Dec. 10, 2010

In the ordinary scheme of things, I’d be writing a column today about the implosion of B.C. politics and the desperate need for a Third Party as the two mainstream parties continue to soil themselves.
But these aren’t ordinary times and there are far more important things happening on the world political stage than the juvenile antics of B.C. politics. What I’m referring to makes a mockery of the entire political process and the right of ordinary citizens to have all information available so they can make informed decisions for themselves.
I’m talking, of course, about the threats – literally – to kill WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and with him free speech itself and our inalienable right to access all the information we need, not just the crumbs politicians want us to know.
And lest you think the foregoing paragraph was a little hyperbolic, consider this. Speaking on a Fox News business show “Follow the Money,” American political commentator Bob Beckel said “a dead man can’t leak stuff” and then went on to say “I’m not for the death penalty, there’s only one way to do it; illegally shoot the son of a bitch.”
Alright you say, that’s Fox News, you can’t take them seriously to which I respond millions of Americans do including Mike Huckabee, who almost won the Republican nomination for president and has publicly called for Assange to be “executed” and, wouldn’t you know it, Sarah Palin, who lumped Assange in with the Taliban and al-Qaida.
But if this doesn’t convince you, what about former Stephen Harper senior adviser and University of Calgary political science professor Tom Flanagan, who joined the lynch mob last week calling for Assange’s death. On the CBC Power and Politics show, Flanagan said: “he should be assassinated, actually. I think Obama should put out a contract and maybe use a drone or something.”
Calgary police are now investigating Flanagan for counselling to commit murder. Hopefully, the University of Calgary is investigating him too. He should be fired.
And what evil things has Assange done to earn such hate and opprobrium? Well, he released state secrets in the U.S. about the war in Iraq such as the killing of thousands of civilians and numerous Iraqi journalists by U.S. forces during the Iraq war. He also published secret military cables about extra-judicial killings by U.S. troops in Afghanistan, as well as U.S. and Israeli plans to invade Iran, espionage activities by China and – are you ready for this -- some of Canada’s dirty little secrets in the Afghan war.
Such as the fact that millions in Canadian aid money spent in Afghanistan to build the Dahala Dam, our key development project in the war-torn country, went into the pockets of Ahmed Wali Karzai, the half-brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and, according to a U.S diplomatic cable “widely understood to be corrupt and a narcotics trafficker.”
So this is what 153 Canadian soldiers have died for in Afghanistan – to support the international heroin trade. Don’t you think we have a right to know that?
WikiLeaks’ stated goal is to ensure that whistleblowers and journalists are not jailed for emailing sensitive or classified documents. The project has been compared to Daniel Ellsberg’s leaking of the Pentagon Papers in 1971 which helped to end the Vietnam War. Ellsberg today is regarded as a hero for doing that whereas Assange has been branded an international outlaw and is currently in jail. Go figure.
And don’t for one minute think that unfettered access to information isn’t important everywhere. Look at the sad spectacle of B.C. politics the past several months. What if we knew the Liberals planned to spring the HST on us after the election? Wouldn’t it be nice to know what really went on with the billion-dollar sale of B.C. Rail and the Basi-Virk affair?
But lacking a Julian Assange, or someone like him in this province, we’re never going to know and our supposed democracy is the poorer for that. And what about our own city? For years we were in blissful ignorance about our leaking sewage lagoon and the problems it was causing.
Information is the oxygen of democracy. Take it away and suffocation sets in soon. Julian Assange may not be an angel, but the cause he’s fighting for benefits us all.

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