SHORTER Marc Thiessen: "We need Obama to use the CheneyBush national security toolchest to put a hit out on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. It's the only responsible thing to do."
Marc Thiessen is furious, simply furious that the Obama adminstration hasn't put Julian Assange on the top of the "Most Wanted" list. In his WaPo op-ed, he calls for the full force of the federal government to stop Assange - a "clear and present danger to the national security of the United States" - before he kills again.
Assange claims to be in possession of 15,000 even more sensitive documents, which he is reportedly preparing to release. On Sunday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told ABC News that Assange had a "moral culpability" for the harm he has caused. Well, the Obama administration has a moral responsibility to stop him from wreaking even more damage.
Assange is a non-U.S. citizen 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.
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Arresting Assange would be a major blow to his organization. But taking him off the streets is not enough; we must also recover the documents he unlawfully possesses and disable the system he has built to illegally disseminate classified information.
Chalk this up as another screeching editoral by the community of people who still believe that there was nothing wrong with how the CheneyBush administration ran the country's security infrastructure. Despite losing elections in 2006 and 2008, they still think that the only way to run the federal government is by unilaterally strong-arming other nations, evesdropping on US citizens, and rewriting the Constitution.
But as much as Thiessen reveals himself to be a foaming-at-the-mouth lunatic, you have to wonder if there are any limits in place at the Washington Post for conservative pundits. Obviously there are not.
