The level of depravity surrounding the Wikileaks saga continues, causing arguably sane people to call for extreme, if not criminal, action:
Did my [Washington Post] colleague, Marc Thiessen, just call for a drone strike in Iceland? Thiessen is obviously incensed by WikiLeaks‘s dissemination of tens of thousands of pages of government documents relating to the Afghan war. And he wants WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, to pay. Here’s how Thiessen put it:
“Assange is a non-U.S. person operating outside the territory of the United States. This means the government has a wide range of options for dealing with him. It can employ not only law enforcement, but also intelligence and military assets, to bring Assange to justice and put his criminal syndicate out of business.”
“Military assests”? Does Thiessen think we’re going to send in Special Ops to pluck Assange from Iceland, Belgium or Sweden, where he’s known to hang out? Or is he thinking that a drone strike might be more effective or efficient?
Thiessen asserts that the United States does not need “permission to apprehend Assange or his co-conspirators anywhere in the world” and that the U.S. should act alone if allies won’t cooperate. I’m not sure this is legally accurate, but let’s assume it is. Is Thiessen suggesting it would be a good idea to disregard an ally’s sovereignty, perhaps do irreparable damage to our relationship with it and the international community just to get our hands on Assange?
Thiessen’s concerns about leaks may be justified, but at least some of his proposed plans of action are more than a little scary and, as it concerns the Wiki founder, more than a little wacky.