Where in the world is Julian Assange? The US State Department publicly professes ignorance: "That’s a question to ask Julian Assange, if you can find him," said a spokesperson at a press briefing yesterday.

There's a good reason Assange keeps his head down these days, and it's not just to avoid an Interpol "red notice" for "sex crimes" in Sweden. No, the gloves have come all the way off now among the commentariat, and while it would normally be unusual to see public calls for a targeted assassination of an Australian citizen, such calls now appear routinely in the media.

There were, for instance, the comments made on the CBC this week by Canadian political scientist Tom Flanagan, who has also served as an advisor to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. "Well, I think Assange should be assassinated, actually," Flanagan said in his TV appearance. "I think Obama should put out a contract and maybe use a drone or something."

Delivered as something of a jest, it was hard to tell how serious Flanagan was with this statement. But the statement was extreme enough and specific enough that the host called Flanagan out on it and gave him a chance to tone it down. Instead, Flanagan responded with a little chuckle: "I'm feeling very manly today."

(In a chat with the UK's Guardian newspaper today, Assange said that Flanagan and others should be charged with incitement to murder, and Flanagan has since renounced his "glib" statements.)

But Flanagan is hardly alone in making such comments, and others are much less "glib" about their suggestions.

"Why can't we act forcefully against WikiLeaks?" asked neoconservative Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol earlier this week. "Why can't we use our various assets to harass, snatch or neutralize Julian Assange and his collaborators, wherever they are? Why can't we disrupt and destroy WikiLeaks in both cyberspace and physical space, to the extent possible? Why can't we warn others of repercussions from assisting this criminal enterprise hostile to the United States?"

Sarah Palin says that Assange is an "anti-American operative with blood on his hands Why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders?" (Though, to be fair to Palin, this may not be a call for murder; it might simply be a call to snatch Assange, hold him in a black site for while while administering an "enhanced interrogation" and a few dozen waterboarding sessions, then shipping him off to Guantanamo for while until a military commission can hear his case.)

Even random bloggers who bill themselves as "passionate moderates" can climb aboard the Execution Express. "We are at war and Julian Assange and Wiki Leaks is now a declared enemy," wrote "Padre Steve" this week. "It is time to treat him and his team as the enemy and whack them wherever they are."

Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the "Pentagon Papers" in the 1970s, said in a radio interview this week that he had actually been targeted in this way by the US government.

"Nixon actually sent, through Coulson and Libby and Hunt, a bunch of CIA assets, so-called, Cuban emigres from the Bay of Pigs, as a White House hit squad against me, directly. With orders to incapacitate me on the steps of the Pentagon as I was in a rally May 3, 1972. So anyone who says there's no danger to Assange of that happening is wrong. There is danger. It should be zero and it isn't. I don't say that it's necessarily very high."

Right to the source

But if the US can't execute Assange, surely it can execute someone? Bradley Manning, the US Army Specialist now in custody for previous leaks to WikiLeaks (and often presumed to be the source for the current leak of diplomatic cables) might be a good second option.

FOX News analyst KT McFarland says that it's time to get Australia to pull Assange's passport, round him up, and try him in a military tribunal—but Manning should have his life on the line. "It's time to up the charges," McFarland writes. "Let's charge him and try him for treason. If he's found guilty, he should be executed."

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) wants Manning to face the death penalty. The calls for treason charges against Manning have been mounting for months.

Leave it to the Russians?

But when it comes to whacking obnoxious journalist types, the US has nothing on Russia, where the death of inconvenient journalists has become something of a cottage industry over the last decade. With WikiLeaks hinting that revelations about Russia are forthcoming, it's certainly possible that the most brutal attempts to shut down Assange and WikiLeaks could come from Moscow.

As one US law enforcement official put it when speaking to The Daily Beast, "the Russians will be ruthless in stopping WikiLeaks" if the site digs into Russian corruption. A hit on Assange might raise concerns in the West, but one British professor believes the real risk would be to informants inside Russia.

"I doubt that they would consider assassination against Westerners who are involved in WikiLeaks, but as for informants in Russia, they would be in very serious danger," Anatol Lieven told The Daily Beast.

WikiLeaks has often been charged with putting people's lives in danger, and some of its publications certainly seem reckless. But to date there has been no documented case of US sources in Afghanistan or Iraq being killed due to the leaks, Assange remains free, and Manning is still alive. But between the confidential sources named in leaked documents and the increasing calls for blood, it looks merely like a matter of time before the WikiLeaks cyber-experiment results in some all-too-physical killing.