“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.)