http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wLYy7ETO34
I found this short video of Tom Flanagan’c commentary on CBC TV, calling for the assassination of Julian Assange, shocking. People point out Flanagan’s association with Harper. He was an advisor to the Conservatives as recently as the 2006 election. What troubles me is that he’s been a professor at the University of Calgary since 1968. http://poli.ucalgary.ca/profiles/thomas-flanagan.
Since the Nov 29 on-camera Flanagan has said he was joking. Enough people called the Calgary Police that they were motivated to do an investigation. There may not be the grounds for laying charges against Flanagan. His trial might be the damage to his reputation. Good on Calgarians and others (Gail Davidson in Vancouver from Lawyers Against the War) for going after Flanagan. I doubt he will be a repeat offender! although this isn’t the first time he has been offensive to some of us.
Harper advisor calls for assassination of Wikileaks director (sorry, I don’t know who wrote this, it came without the identifier):
In a shockingly flippant comment to a Canadian television news anchor Evan Solomon of the CBC News Network on live TV, Tom Flanagan, a senior advisor and strategist to the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper today called for the assassination of Wikileaks director Julian Assange. It is believed to be the first ever televised “fatwa” since the edict by the Iranian leadership of the late Ayatollah Khomeini against British writer Salman Rushdie in February 1989. Amazingly, although news anchor Solomon afforded Flanagan the opportunity to retract his statement, Flanagan balked at doing so and instead reiterated that U.S. President should put out a “contract” on Assange or use “a drone” and that he would not be unhappy if Assange “disappeared.” Flanagan who is a trusted member of PM Harper’s inner circle of Tory strategists joins Sarah Palin in calling for the death of the Wikileaks director as retribution for the website’s release of confidential diplomatic and intelligence “chatter” this week.