The Walrus Blog

The Man Who Would Kill* Julian Assange

From the magazine archives, a profile of conservative political strategist Tom Flanagan

From the archives, a profile of conservative political strategist Tom Flanagan

Composite image courtesy of Tom FlanaganComposite image courtesy of Tom Flanagan

Tuesday evening on CBC News Network, Tom Flanagan — widely identified today as “an advisor to the Prime Minister of Canada” — called for the targeted killing of Julian Assange, editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, the whistleblower website which has caused an international scandal by releasing massive amounts of United States diplomatic cables. “I think Assange should be assassinated, actually. I think [Barack] Obama should put out a contract and maybe use a drone or something,” Flanagan told host Evan Solomon on live television. Given the opportunity to retract his statement, Flanagan replied, “Well, I’m feeling very manly today… I wouldn’t feel unhappy if Assange disappeared.”

Who is Tom Flanagan? Six years ago, award-winning investigative journalist Marci MacDonald profiled him for The Walrus:

Little is known about the shadowy, sixty-year-old professor who is staying on Harper’s post-election payroll as a senior advisor from Calgary. Flanagan declined to be quoted in this story. In Ottawa, where he has refused interviews for the last three years, some journalists regard him as a modern-day Rasputin manipulating a leader sixteen years his junior. But in Calgary, one of his former students, Ezra Levant, publisher of the eight-month-old Western Standard magazine, cautions against that generational cliché. These days, Levant sees Flanagan and Harper more as “symbiotic partners.” But he does not disagree with a Globe and Mail report that once referred to Flanagan as the original godfather of the city’s conservative intellectual mafia. “I call him Don Tomaso,” Levant says. “He is the master strategist, the godfather — even of Harper.”

Click here to read the rest of MacDonald’s story, called “The Man Behind Stephen Harper.”


* Update: Flanagan now claims to be The Man Who Was Only Kidding About Killing Julian Assange.

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  • Diggerjohn111

    I dunno exactly who he is, but I think I like him.

    • Johnny

      agreed

  • Pingback: Do the Injuns next | wicked

    • priscilla settee

      screw you
      the Injun’s spokesperson

  • Conspiracy2Riot

    Well I’m feeling pretty tough today too, so perhaps we call for you to be dispatched.

    Assange is a hero doing the people’s work. Screw your Governments secrecy that hides their crimes against us all. The power now concentrated in the hands of the top 2% of the worlds population only serves to ensure that ONLY those at the top will have food, shelter, resources and continue to exploit the rest of us.

    There’s BILLIONS of us. We should come for you people.

    • sdfsf

      So your accusing Tom Flanagan of releasing thousands of classified documents and starting an inernational incident that has already resulted in civilians in multiple countries being killed – over bad manners? If so, and it can be proved, I agree with you.

      • cath erine

        pull your head out of your butt and maybe you will hear the news reports more accurately, no individuals world wide have been hurt as a result of the disclosure of the tapes as reported by pentagon spokespeople and further, the US investigation into the activities of Mr. Assange has concluded that he is not guilty of espionage. Mr. Flanagan on the other hand is in violation of Canadian hate laws which criminalize inciting violence. Hmmm Mr. Flanagan has crossed legal boundaries and Mr. Assange hasn’t… I don’t know, do you get four when you add two and two? Oh but I forgot, Mr. Flanagan is so ‘manly’ and in the end it is testosterone that will save humanity, tell me do you you worship at an altar shaped like a penis?

  • Todd

    Flanagan runs a clever game, currently pimping himself out as a political commentator who’s broken from the party line and distanced himself from Harper. It’s an act, and one that regularly fools CBC into providing a free platform for his sick mission to make Canada a conservative paradise. Too bad he’s winning his war on our souls.

  • Tony

    Uh huh…typical conservative policy….”He makes us look bad…we will be exposed…we must get rid of him.”

  • M

    Tom Flanagna is absoultely right.
    Fist grab Julain Assange, subject him to very hard interrogation to extract all info from him, in particular whether he is working for Al Qaeda, Iran, Russia or all ove the above. Then terminate him with extreme prejudice for all the lives he has put at risk and all the harm he has done without a twinge of remorse.

    • Mr. Cat

      Well, M, at least you believe in the rule of law :]

      • Q

        You can’t kill an idea or a Belief . Assange believes in Truth and Openness .
        The best insurance is never to do anything wrong ,so there won’t be anything to hide.
        Do we not have a right to expect that Politicians are of a Superior Moral Caliber ,if not ,by what Authority are we bound to follow them ? Law of Bureaucracy? ( of Paper(?).
        Are People fools? The Internet means Information is Free .are they going to ‘kill the Internet(?)’. Are people going to allow this to happen? People need to reassert their Personal Power .

    • HOC

      You’re an actual Nazi. Congratulations.

    • http://www.salgoodsam.com Salgood Sam

      “as usual, for authoritarian minds, those who expose secrets are far more hated than those in power who commit heinous acts using secrecy as their principal weapon.” – Glenn Greenwald

      The US put it’s people, itself, and the rest of us at risk with it’s actions and the lies they have been founded on, not the leaked papers. The papers only prove the truth of that. It’s absurd to blame him. It’s same full to propose to deal with him as you do.

      Holding him responsible is overlooking the primary factors of deployment and the person who pulls the trigger in the end and shooting instead the messenger who tells you it’s happening or could happen and honestly just exactly how.

      Wikileaks, which is in fact several hundred people – Assange is just their representative – has been quite careful to redact anything they can that directly names someone at risk, they’ve done more than many journalists in the past have on this count. Far far more than the politicians and the like who’ve put people in harms way on the pretenses of lies and profits. Far more than those who’s actions and orders are being exposed to the light of day.

      Shame on you M, another black hearted, hate mongering, small minded fool hiding behind an anonymous handle.

    • Nicholas U

      Hey M sounds like you are throttling the wedding tackle…..due to engaging in two ludicrous wars the USA is frickin’ broke……could have done a deal with Iran to solve all those problems, der.

      Your great mates the Saudis……have been playing the USA for decades,

      The Pakistani’s and the Taliban wanted to keep this going……..so that the primitive infidels (the American taxpayer)…….would hand over the money.

      er do you know of an C18th bloke called Thomas Jefferson?

      Quote ‘information is the currency of democracy, without which we have neither’ (or words to that effect)

      Correct me if I am wrong the 1st amendment of the US Constitution allows for freedom of speech.

      Dear M I think you will find that WikiLeaks has some real dirt on how the banks have f**ked the average US citizen……information that is far more powerful than spilling some beans about diplomatic cocktail parties……..wake up, er do yourself a favour.

  • KH

    Another neocon fascist…

  • http://mados.wordpress.com/about/ Anne

    What became of “freedom of speech”? Not trendy any more?

    • http://www.salgoodsam.com Salgood Sam

      Dear Anne. This is not america, we do not have unqualified freedom of speech.

      Indeed here there are limits and calling for an assassination comes bloody close to them. He’s safe, but only just. And he had his say.

      And now, more to the point, so do we. The freedom to speak extends to calling out on obnoxious offensive speaker who calls for the Murder of a good man.

      And, to calling you out for trying to use the freedom of speech to justify keeping others mum about his comments.

      Tolerance only extends so far.

      • http://mados.wordpress.com/ Anna

        Dear Salgod Sam and Steve,

        I can see my comment was understood opposite from what I meant. I referred to the irony in the situation:

        First the ‘freedom of speech’ mantra was used political through many years as a never failing justification of wars against regimes that oppressed and manipulated information freedom. Then, when the moment of truth was up, and the US government had lost control of the cables released to Wikileaks, it turned out that transparency was now evil, even labelled terrorism. and this respectable (I presume) Canadian politician felt that it was perfectly OK to call out for Assange’s murder… very strange indeed.

        Anyone know what has happened to Assange and Wikileaks lately? Wikileaks were about to release information about a major American bank, but then everything slowly became quiet. No more Wikileaks news stories.

    • Steve

      RE: What became of freedom of speech?

      Maybe you should ask Mr. Jim Keegstra, former high school teacher
      in the small town of Eckville, Alberta. You see Mr. Keegstra was
      exercising his “right” of “freedom of speech” by telling his students
      that the Holocaust never took place, this was all a filthy Jewish
      scheme, a Zionist plot to win sympathy for Israel. Unfortunately
      for Mr. Keegstra and fortunately for the rest of Canada he had to
      stand trial for inciting hatred. He lost his case and his teaching
      position, “for exercising freedom of speech”.

      • cath erine

        Actually he lost his job for inciting hatred and misrepresenting history to his students. inciting is different from opining. We are free to express our opinions not free to flog lies as truth and try to motivate violence based on those lies.

  • Gotlieb Schott

    I would like to see the dirty bastard killed but he needs to be tortured for several days before he is killed. His days are definitely numbered.

  • Thomas Folkestone

    Flanagan, the armchair assassin, calls for Assange’s death.

    Levant, Flanagan’s student, calls for Assange’s assassination.

    What do you think Steven Harpo thinks?

    (really they are foul examples of the worst kind of Canadians — but hey, they show how free we are as a nation! even the most odious rats can speak their minds!)

  • Judith Polson

    Oh boy, kill the messenger.

  • Heartbeatt

    85 % of the comments here are pure garbage, based on utter ignorance of what is going on.

    Julian Assange and Wikileaks is one of the best things that happened and will be seen as an important moment in history one day. No one has been harmed and probably no one will, except hopefully our lying governments. Truth is much less dangerous than what has been going on for decades in the name of freedom!

    • Gotlieb Schott

      Actually someone will be harmed. Julian will hopefully not be killed but at the very least will spend many years of his worthless life in prison. Can’t wait. It’s about to happen.

    • http://www.salgoodsam.com Salgood Sam

      I agree with you HEARTBEATT, except for one thing, only looks like 6 out of the 20 comments on this post so far are anti Assange. Not quite the 85% you mentioned there.

      While there is significant negative flack towards him and Wikileaks from some quarters, have to say my impression so far is it’s a minority voice in a lot of places. The various states and groups they have exposed of course, and it looks like to me, a few “patriotic” news organs that seem to be taking umbrage. And a potion of the public that seems to be taking up the line from their nightly news without a lot of facts to back it up. Thats a promising trend i hope.

      • Stephen

        A comment can be pro- or anti-Assange and still be complete garbage. Sturgeon’s law says 90% of everything is crap so if it’s 85% we’re actually doing better than usual here.

  • kittens

    How very appropriate that this introduction to another piece is headed by bogus photo of Flanagan holding a fish he didn’t catch.

    That’s Flanagan in a nutshell: duplicitous douchebag.

  • Doug Sephton

    Politicians and political strategists in Alberta are all to quick to condemn people they disagree with.
    Tom Flanagan – kill Julian Assange
    Fred Horne – Raj Sherman is mentally unstable
    Dr. John O’Connor, Dr. David Schindler, Peter Lee and Kevin Timoney have all been disparaged or discredited by government in response to their claims that the tar sands cause cancer due to the contaminated water and wildlife in and adjacent to the Athabaska River downstream from Fort McMurray.
    Tom Flanagan and Mike Huckabee have power and influence over individuals who have guns and the inclination to carry out an assassination.
    In my opinion Mr. Assange is being persecuted for his efforts to provide us with the tools to hold governments accountable.

  • Stephen

    I can’t comment about Canadian law but in Britain you can be convicted of inciting criminal acts even if no one actually goes on to commit the crime. You see it a lot in terrorism cases — no one blows anything up but they go after the guy who was telling people to blow stuff up.

    I suspect the police may have enough to go on for an incitement to murder charge right now.

  • Pingback: Cablegate: Washington Times Columnist Calls For Assange's Assassination | Neon Tommy

  • Don Laird

    Assange has wrapped himself in the robes of the pious and self righteous and appointed himself defender of Public good. What he does is manipulate and censor material before he releases it. Case in point is the video of the Reuters killing…Wikileaks purposely edited out the portion of that tape at the beginning which clearly showed the men carrying RPG’s and AK47′s, (found on the Jawa Report and other sites)now he whines about calls for his assassination/execution??.he is nothing less than a criminal who richly deserves the backlash.

    Let the silence that follows the neutralization of Julian Assange, his staff and his co-conspirators speak volumes to the enlightened socialist academia, liberal intelligencia and those sneering, malicious self appointed bringers of “clarity and truth” remaining who toy with the idea of dabbling in what is nothing more than a treasonous, seditious exercise in self gratification wrapped in the robes of the self righteous.

    As a footnote, I find it remarkable that Assange, now righteously indignant that his death has been called for, falls back on the Canadian criminal code to silence opposition to his little program of murderous anarchy. How utterly predictable that a man who has toyed with the lives of millions for his own personal amusement now shrilly calls for the protections afforded by the democratic processes of the very nations and governments he has unceasingly assaulted and subverted.

    • Steve

      If we had real investigate reporters in this day and age – like Bernstein and Woodward in the days of Watergate – we would have no need – or at best little need – for the likes of Wikileaks. Today’s media just takes the pap the US Government feeds them as the Gospel Truth. And, as far as I am concerned the current witch hunt for Jason Assange is no different (except in order of magnitude) from the smear campaign that was launched against SCOTT RITTER just before the US invaded Iraq … because Ritter had the temerity to state publically that there was no evidence of WMD in Iraq. Remember that? Within a couple of months the ‘rumour mill’ painted him as a child molester.

    • CowGarry

      Sure Don.
      You strike me as more than a bit angry.

      “The actions of Julian Assange and his staff and supporters of Wikileaks has placed the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children in grave danger, and Julian Assange’s only response is one of arrogant, hypocritical, sanctimonious and contemptuous disregard for the same.”
      Can you provide factual evidence since the Pentagon has not been able to substantiate your claims? has he been charged with any crime regarding said documents?

      “Let the silence that follows the neutralization of Julian Assange, his staff and his co-conspirators speak volumes to the enlightened socialist academia, liberal intelligencia and those sneering, malicious self appointed bringers of “clarity and truth” remaining who toy with the idea of dabbling in what is nothing more than a treasonous, seditious exercise in self gratification wrapped in the robes of the self righteous.”

      This “clarity and truth” sounds like it upsets you.
      Shall we just default to you to provide us with the truth from here on in?

  • Albin

    Assange simply “scooped” western journalists, now agonizing about whether he should have instead of how he did it.

    My subjective experience of my Sony remote is that obliterating anybody on TV is an imaginary, exuberant and effective assassination and the self-revelatory Flanagan is now nothing more than another satisfying blip of the Sony remote.

  • Dalmazio Brisinda

    I would urge the University of Calgary to censure Professor Flanagan and remove him from any position of authority, influence, or otherwise. I would also urge thoughtful and circumspect students to boycott his lectures. His statements are deplorable and indefensible.

    We need more people like Mr. Julian Assange who are willing to speak truth to power, and encourage the free flow of information which directly affects public policy decisions. If we value freedom of information, transparency, openness, and democracy, we ought to praise not condemn such efforts.

    “Information is the currency of democracy.” — Thomas Jefferson

    “The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.” — Patrick Henry

    “Nothing so diminishes democracy as secrecy.” — Ramsey Clark

    “The very word ‘secrecy’ is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings.” — John Fitzgerald Kennedy

    “A government by secrecy benefits no one. It injures the people it seeks to serve; it damages its own integrity and operation. It breeds distrust, dampens the fervor of its citizens and mocks their loyalty.” — Russell Long

    “When the state constitution grants each citizen an “inalienable right” to “privacy,” it’s talking about individuals seeking safety from an overreaching government, not an elected official trying to evade the oversight of constituents. It’s the difference between seeking protection from tyranny and seeking protection from democracy.” — Jon Mendelson

    “The basic purpose of FOIA is to ensure an informed citizenry, vital to the functioning of a democratic society, needed to check against corruption and to hold the governors accountable to the governed.” — United States Supreme Court in NLRB v. Robbins Tire Co., 437 U.S. 214, 242 (1978)

    “The overarching purpose of access to information legislation … is to facilitate democracy. It does so in two related ways. It helps to ensure first, that citizens have the information required to participate meaningfully in the democratic process, and secondly, that politicians and bureaucrats remain accountable to the citizenry.” — Gerard LaForest, former Supreme Court of Canada Justice, in Dagg vs. Canada (1997)

  • Martin Hollyer

    This guy is a creep. So he says that Julian Assange should be assassinated. I would attribute this to the type of stupidity that we in a free society are allowed to practice.

    What an ass. If this guy is the man behind Stephen Harper Assange is right to expose government secrets because there are men like Flanagan with their hands on government power.

    What will we learn? I don’t know. But I’ve got an encrypted file with the name “Insurance Assange Style” and am waiting for the key.

  • tjv5401

    A Canadian actually killing someone? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

  • http://astro-girls.com/capricorn/ capricorn

    julian can hide behind “free speech”, but spying and hacking gov docs is against the law. yep, spys are shot at sunrise. he played his nerdy game, now he pays the price. he’s ruined, and for what? ok, so he goes into the history books now. good for him.


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