There is simply no evidence that anyone in "the national security bureaucracy" is entertaining the idea of killing Julian Assange. There isn't even any evidence that any military or law enforcement agency in the US is entertaining the idea of apprehending him. On what grounds would they do so?
It is, on the other hand, very easy for me to accept that the US would try to recruit any one of the tens of thousands of well-armed, morally ambiguous bandits carousing around the western tribal provinces of Pakistan. After all, tens of thousands of well-armed American and NATO fighters are waiting just on the other side of an invisible border between Afghanistan and Pakistan to shoot at those same bandits.
There is simply a world of difference between the Assange scenario and the AfPak scenario; an avalanche of incentive exists in AfPak, and yet we're still bound by a kabuki dance of "rules of engagement" and "surgical" airstrikes.
There's no way I can win an argument about this with you, because it demands that I prove a negative: that nobody in the US government, no matter how ineffectual or mentally incompetant, would, given the chance, seek to neutralize Julian Assange (by PR, by arrest, or by murder). But suffice it to say: you're talking to someone who believes that if agents from the FBI, CIA, and AFOSI were standing right in front of Julian Assange in an unlit alley blocked on either end with vans ready to spirit him away, they'd try to get him to answer a few (or many) questions... and then leave him to walk away.
There is simply no evidence that anyone in "the national security bureaucracy" is entertaining the idea of killing Julian Assange. There isn't even any evidence that any military or law enforcement agency in the US is entertaining the idea of apprehending him. On what grounds would they do so?
Um...I'm not claiming that anyone is planning on killing Assange. Please reread my comment. I'm only disputing some factual claims that you made. Just because I think portions of your argument are weak and unsupported (or irrelevant) doesn't mean that I agree with the people you're arguing with.
There is simply a world of difference between the Assange scenario and the AfPak scenario; an avalanche of incentive exists in AfPak, and yet we're still bound by a kabuki dance of "rules of engagement" and "surgical" airstrikes.
When you say "we", are you referring to the US military or the civilian contractors that are running their own airstrikes in AfPak totally apart from the military and military rules?
Can you be more specific about which of my arguments you're trying to help me shore up? When you say things like "the US government is skillful at killing people with drones" and "I'm surprised by the degree to which people in the national security community believe that organizations can be stopped by killing the right leader" and that killing people is an "everything looks like a nail" solution and that while killing Assange wouldn't stop Wikileaks "that understanding isn't commonly held" in the US government... when you say these things, it sure sounds like you agree with the conspiracy theorists.
When you say things like "the US government is skillful at killing people with drones"
My point here is that talking about government killings in Baluchistan is irrelevant. Baluchistan is a very different place than Sweden. The fact that government has great difficulty finding and then killing people in a remote tribal region doesn't tell us anything about their ability to find and kill people in a place like Sweden.
"I'm surprised by the degree to which people in the national security community believe that organizations can be stopped by killing the right leader"
My point here is that your mental model for how people in the national security bureaucracy seems incomplete. I think your belief that WikiLeaks can't be stopped by killing its leaders is correct -- I just don't think we have any basis for assuming this belief is shared inside the intel/defense establishment, especially given its recent history of being unable/unwilling to consider the futility of campaigns based on leadership strikes.
when you say these things, it sure sounds like you agree with the conspiracy theorists.
Not at all. I disagree with ignorant and poorly reasoned arguments. You are bringing some to the table.
(a) I think it's easier to have someone killed in an area already bristling with guns and rife with violence, an area where a civilian killing, even an intentional one, is easily covered up. (b) I think it's much harder to kill someone in Sweden. (c) I think there are many people in Baluchistan who we have demonstrable direct overt military incentive to kill. (d) I think there's little to no incentive to kill Julian Assange. (e) I think we're demonstrably ineffective it neutralizing targets in Baluchistan.
Those are my premises. From them, I derive the argument that the evidence available suggests that we don't intend to harm Assange. We simply suck at picking people out and killing them, even when we have straightforward military objectives served by doing so.
From all your comments, I can tell that you have straightforward and valid objections to the way the US has persecuted its "war on terror". You and I probably agree on most of them. I understand how those objections might bleed into the Assange story, but I think that's all it is: an unrelated objection bleeding into this narrative. The world is not a spy movie, even though the US has sometimes acted in ways that might make it look like it is.
[The US government is poorly equipped kill people]
=>
[The US government does not wish to kill Julian Assange] ????
As an argument, this seems clearly fallacious.
... while the nature of a world of multiple actors, motives and methods hardly cannot be fully pieced together with syllogisms, if you are going to try, at least use some are plausible.
It is, on the other hand, very easy for me to accept that the US would try to recruit any one of the tens of thousands of well-armed, morally ambiguous bandits carousing around the western tribal provinces of Pakistan. After all, tens of thousands of well-armed American and NATO fighters are waiting just on the other side of an invisible border between Afghanistan and Pakistan to shoot at those same bandits.
There is simply a world of difference between the Assange scenario and the AfPak scenario; an avalanche of incentive exists in AfPak, and yet we're still bound by a kabuki dance of "rules of engagement" and "surgical" airstrikes.
There's no way I can win an argument about this with you, because it demands that I prove a negative: that nobody in the US government, no matter how ineffectual or mentally incompetant, would, given the chance, seek to neutralize Julian Assange (by PR, by arrest, or by murder). But suffice it to say: you're talking to someone who believes that if agents from the FBI, CIA, and AFOSI were standing right in front of Julian Assange in an unlit alley blocked on either end with vans ready to spirit him away, they'd try to get him to answer a few (or many) questions... and then leave him to walk away.