Remember when WikiLeaks was dominating news coverage a few weeks ago the way the Arizona shooting rampage is today?
Back then I got a lot of flak from my liberal friends for writing the following about what the U.S. should do to WikiLeaks’s founder, Julian Assange:
[I]f these leaks pose (or have caused) the kind of damage U.S. officials claim, then Julian Assange, the defiant revealer of all government secrets who heads WikiLeaks, should be either dead or sitting in Guantanamo Bay.
(WikiLeaks more U.S. secrets, The iPINIONS Journal, November 29, 2010)
Well, it seems no less a person than Assange’s own lawyer thinks that’s exactly what the U.S. is planning to do. For, in defending his infamous client against being extradited to Sweden to be interrogated on allegations of rape and sexual assault, his lawyer made clear his fear that this would lead inexorably to being extradited to the U.S.
Specifically, he argued during an extradition hearing in London on Tuesday that:
…there will be a real risk of him being detained at Guantanamo Bay or elsewhere … there is a real risk that he could be made subject to the death penalty. It is well-known that prominent figures have implied, if not stated outright, that Mr. Assange should be executed.
(London Guardian, January 11, 2011)
Frankly, Assange is either certifiably insane or criminally naive if he thinks he can do more to undermine U.S. foreign-policy interests than Osama bin Laden and get away with it. The British court is expected to rule on his extradition to Sweden in early February….
Related commentaries:
WikiLeaks more U.S. secrets
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