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Palin: Assange should be hunted like a terrorist
‘He’s no journalist - he’s an anti-American operative with blood on his hands’
Neither has formally declared, but two potential Republican candidates in the 2012 White House race, Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee, are trying to outdo each other in suggesting a solution to the WikiLeaks problem.
Oddly, Palin is the more moderate of the two.
She simply wants Julian Assange to be hunted down by the US government and brought to justice. Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, wants Bradley Manning, the young soldier responsible for leaking the documents to Assange, to be hanged as a traitor.
First, Palin. She wrote on Facebook: "His [Assange's] past posting of classified documents revealed the identity of more than 100 Afghan sources to the Taliban. Why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders?"
She is just as furious with the Obama administration for its "incompetence" as she is with Assange for his acts of "terrorism".
"First and foremost, what steps were taken to stop WikiLeaks director Julian Assange from distributing this highly sensitive classified material especially after he had already published material not once but twice in the previous months?" she wrote.
As The First Post reported yesterday, Assange is now a wanted man in the US, Europe and Australia. Only Ecuador has stepped forward to offer him refuge.
He would certainly be well advised not to show up in Alaska.
"Assange is not a 'journalist' any more than the 'editor' of al-Qaeda's new English-language magazine Inspire is a 'journalist'," said Palin. "He is an anti-American operative with blood on his hands."
As for Huckabee, he told reporters on Tuesday: "Whoever in our government leaked that information is guilty of treason, and I think anything less than execution is too kind a penalty."
Huckabee was in California, promoting his two new books, A Simple Christmas and Can't Wait Till Christmas. Manning is in jail in Kuwait, presumably praying that Huckabee doesn't make it to the White House. ·
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Comments
The loudest cries from those with most to fear.
Who are these countless people who lives have been endangered by Mr. Assange? CIA operatives or diplomats or soldiers who shoot civilians? So far nobody that I have heard about has even hinted that the documents he has published are not authentic. If they were all lies he would not be worth a bullet. It is only the truth that hurts. Mr. McGrane you are entitled to your opinion but I value it as much as I do sharp shooter, Palin's.
Assange is a liar and a fantasist, but those are not sufficient reasons to take him out. However, hacking computer systems, encouraging others to do so, and being a repository for classified information that others have stolen, and then making them public, is not the sort of behaviour that is consistent with a long and peaceful life. He deserves to be prosecuted for criminal activity. He will not be a martyr if he is assassinated but a fool who put his own and countless others' lives in danger.