The Assassination of Julian Assange?

Julian Assange is now officially a wanted man in Sweden.

Almost as soon as the world became aware of Wikileaks on a broad scale—sometime earlier this summer—we all began asking the same question we asked when it looked like Barack Obama might win the presidency: Will this guy get assassinated?

Moreover, the question was almost most more of a “when” than an “if.” I once spoke to Jesse Ventura about it, and he was convinced Obama would be assassinated before his inauguration if he won. The momentum that keeps institutional norms in place is powerful, almost inexorable, like the force of gravity. No one, it seems, is allowed to disrupt the system—at least for long.

But unlike Martin Luther King Jr., JFK or John Lennon, they didn’t have to kill Barack Obama physically to kill what made him dangerous. Obama heralded a sea change—he and his progressive young electorate army were going to dial back defense spending and dial up education, dial back taxes on the middle class and dial up taxes on the rich—all of which was highly dangerous to the special interests and military contractors who stood to lose billions from these changes.

But Obama, in the end, is just a politician. The defense spending stays. The Bush era tax cuts will stay. There’s no need to kill the man as long as Republican filibusters exist.

Julian Assange, on the other hand, is a whole different story—or so we thought.

Assange is not only not a politician, he’s anti-political. Holding no allegiance to any country and only to truth, he’s the ultimate danger to every country’s government. Sarah Palin should look at Assange if she wants to see what “going rogue” really looks like.

Sure enough, shortly after Assange started making waves, the attacks followed suit. Accused as an enemy of states (many of them, including the US) Assange went on the run, looking for a country that would offer safe harbor. Assange’s laptops were stolen on an international flight, and he took to disguising himself for safety as he continued leaking documents.

After a brief stint where it looked like he may have found asylum in Sweden, sexual assault allegations arose from two “unnamed women,” and Assange was forced to go on the run once again.

Assange has dismissed out of hand the rape allegations as spurious smear campaign. But last month Assange walked out of a CNN interview when the rape charges overshadowed the substance of his latest leak regarding US improprieties in Afghanistan, and today the AP reports that Sweden will now actively seek a warrant for Assange’s arrest in connection to the rape charge.

Will this “character assassination” once again stand in for actual assassination? If Assange is indeed convicted of rape, will we ever really know for sure that the evidence against him is credible? Every sovereign government clearly has a motive to silence Assange, which makes a fair trial a problematic proposition.

Maybe it’s possible that Assange isn’t actually the beacon of integrity he positions himself. Maybe, in addition to his notorious ego and supposedly tyrannical management style, he’s also guilty of sexual assault. Or maybe what we’re witnessing is an international collusion between governments to assassinate Assange—one way or another.

Assange walks from a CNN interview last month: