Jack21222 said:
Is this going to be a dictionary argument? Alright, I guess I'll go first.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/murder?show=0&t=1291905277
No. People who know me here know that one of my biggest pet peves is people playing fast-and-loose with definitions. If people stick to the dictionary definition, that would be
great.
What I have an issue with is people not applying logic to the situtation. Just posting the definition is not applying logic. Logic is what
connects the definition to the situation at hand. In the interest of saving time, I'll provide your logical argument for you - by all means, correct me if I get it wrong:
The Murder Argument: Assange is a civilian and as such is entitled to certain rights as outlined in the Bill of Rights, UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and/or related documents. Therefore, killing him is murder.
Close enough? It's simple, straightforward logic. So what is wrong with it?
The basis for The Murder Argument is the premise that Assange is a civilian. That's what I take issue with. So I'll lay out my argument for why he is, in reality, an enemy spy.
Disclaimer: Practical considerations and public opinion may prevent the US from acting based on the logic I lay out. That doesn't necessarily make the logic wrong, it just means people reject logic when strong feelings get in the way. This happens a lot in politics and it is the essence of why I have said several times that people are not taking/treating the issue seriously.
My argument is based on several well-known facts and a few logical inferences. For clarity, I'll explicitly call out which is which. Most of the common-knowledge facts can be found in the wiki entry for Wikileaks and sub-entries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_War_documents_leak
1. Fact: In July of this year, Wikileaks released the "Afghan War Diary".
2. Fact: The "Afghan War Diary" (AWD) contains 92,000 military log documents that show our troops' activities in Afghanistan, including troop strenghths, movements, engagements, causalties, tactics, etc - a veritable encyclopedia of our war effort.
3. Fact: Also included in the AWD are the names and known GPS coordinates of Afghani civilians and defecting enemy fighters assisting the US war effort by informing on the Taliban's movements.
4. Fact: The Taliban responded to the leak: "We will investigate through our own secret service whether the people mentioned are really spies working for the U.S. If they are U.S. spies, then we know how to punish them." (translation: kill them)
5. Fact: Wikileaks has hundreds of thousands of more documents it intends to release - releases have continued over the past few weeks.
6. Logical Inference: It is likely that the release of the AWD has resulted in the deaths of Afghanis and possibly also American soldiers.
7. It is likely that future releases will similarly endanger Afghanis and Americans.
So, to sum up and tie it all together:
Assange and his organization received stolen classified American military information and passed it on to our enemies in a war we are fighting. This likely killed people. That makes Assange and Wikileaks active participants in the war, on the side of the Taliban. Wikileaks continues to release informaiton that is likely to be of further use to the Taliban: In other words, they are continuing to participate in the war.
As active participants in the war against the US - and dangerous ones at that - the staff of Wikileaks are not civilians, they are at best enemy combatants and at worst illegal combatants. Either way, they are
subject to military force to stop them from continuing to assist the Taliban. If the Wikileaks servers were located in Afghanistan or if the Wikileaks staff were passing documents by hand to the Taliban, the solution would be straightforward: drop a big bomb on their building or send in the SEALs to raid it. The fact that their servers are not physically located in the war zone does not affect the logic at all - just like a Predator pilot flying a bombing mission while sitting in a comfy swivel chair in a building in North Dakoda is a also a combatant.
Other arguments likely to come up from the other side:
A. Wikileaks staff aren't spies because they didn't steal the documents, they only released the documents. Irrelevant: It isn't just illegal to steal classified docs, it is illegal to possesses and disstribute them to our enemies. (in the Espionage Act of 1917:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espionage_Act_of_1917 andhttp://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way...be-talking-himself-into-espionage-act-charges )
B. The Espionage Act does not apply to people who aren't American citizens. Incorrect. See links above.
C. Wikileaks is a news organization and Assange a reporter and therefore they are not spies. Irrelevant and/or incorrect. Assange has no history as a journalist. He's a hacker who has a prior conviction for hacking. He bounced around at various schools, studying various sciences; never journalism. If he can be considered a journalist, then
anyone with a website is a journalist. That's illogical. It is also irrelevant, since being a journalist does not provide protection against the espionage act: http://www.rcfp.org/news/mag/30-4/cov-reporter.html
D. Assange is in custody and as a prisoner can't be considered a threat and killed. That's a potential wrinkle/complication for him, but it doesn't apply to his servers or his staff.
So to reiterate my position:
The continued release of classified documents by Wikileaks constitutes an act of war against the USA and as such, the organization should be stopped with military/CIA means, including - if necessary to stop them - killing the staff.